


Dancing in the Dark

by palavapeite



Series: Children of Lesser Gods [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Blood, Budapest, Emotional Confusion, Friendship, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Mission Fic, Torture, Vienna, Violence, assassin brOT3, assassin bros, injuries, nobody listens to Fury, to hell with orders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palavapeite/pseuds/palavapeite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mission in Vienna goes wrong in a most unexpected way.</p>
<p>Set about 1,5 years after “Treading Water”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing in the Dark

“I’m going to freeze my balls off. Just putting that out there.”

“No, you’re not. It’s October.”

“This city is windy as fuck,” Clint replied, glancing through the open bathroom door at Natasha, who was sitting on a small chair by the marble wash basin, painting her nails. She was in her underwear, her legs covered in shaving cream and her hair piled up on her head, fixed with a clasp. Checking the fingers of her right hand with a critical look, she gingerly dipped the brush back into the small bottle and continued to paint the nails on her left.

Clint, who sat on the grand bed of her hotel room wearing his combat gear, pulled his quiver close and began to inspect his arrows.

“Why can’t I come along?” he asked and leaned back onto the bed, propped up on his arms.

“Because someone has to stand watch,” Coulson replied, stepping through the door that led into the adjacent room. He was wearing black evening trousers and a crisp white shirt. His cuffs were unbuttoned and his bow-tie was hanging loosely around his neck. “They’ve checked in,” he added. “Currently in their rooms. You should have about an hour to get into position, Hawkeye. Natasha and I’ll leave shortly after.”

Natasha nodded absent-mindedly as she screwed the bottle of nail polish shut and checked her make-up in the mirror with a critical face. Smacking her lips, she picked up her razor with her fingertips and started to shave her legs, slightly out of sight from the bedroom.

“Yeah, remind me again why it has to be me standing guard in the cold and not you?” Clint asked and Coulson raised an eyebrow, getting his pair of silver and blue cuff links from his suitcase.

“Because I happen to like opera.”

Clint snorted.

“Okay. So why can’t Natasha stand guard, then?”

“Because the dress made your shoulders look bulky,” Natasha replied from the bathroom and Coulson chuckled, then sighed, shrugging.

“Sorry, Barton, you had your chance and blew it.”

“Face it, Clint, I make the more convincing niece.” Natasha’s voice was smug.

“Pah,” Clint huffed, pulling an arrow from the quiver lying on the bed next to him and twisting it between his fingers. “More convincing beard’s more like it. Oh, come on,” he added when he saw Phil’s pokerface. “Family resemblance? Nil. And those cuff links? Dead give away.”

“I’ll have you know they bring out the blue of my eyes,” Phil replied smoothly and Clint snickered, sitting up on the bed and nodding at Coulson’s socked feet.

“You’re going to change those socks, I hope?”

“What, wrong shade of purple for the opera?”

“No, but they’re mine and I was planning on wearing them,” Clint replied, grinning.

“This is why I’m not taking you, Barton.”

“Oh, but this is exactly why you should be taking me!” Clint protested, glancing towards the bathroom when Natasha closed the door and locked herself in. He pursed his lips at Phil.

“C’mon, Coulson, ditch the ballerina,” he muttered conspiratorially. “I could totally be your hot boyfriend for the night.”

“I can still hear you,” Natasha’s voice came muffled through the door and Coulson grinned. His face was smug.

“The point of our going to the opera is to collect information,” he said. “Subtly.”

Clint threw his arms up.

“So what? You know, I’ve learned some things about interrogation since that time in Singapore...” Natasha’s snort was audible from the bathroom and Clint stuck his tongue out at the door. “Shut up! I have!”

“I know you have,” Coulson laughed, taking off his socks and throwing them at Clint with a superior smirk. “But I’ve got more game showing up with my obvious beard than with a boy toy breathing down my neck, Barton.”

Plucking the pair of purple socks off his head, Clint sighed, a smug grin on his face.

“So basically I’m too hot and distracting to come along, is that what you’re saying?”

He looked at Phil, who had put on a black pair of socks and was walking towards the bed, his shoes in hand.

“Not really, actually.” Phil sat down next to Clint and Clint slapped him playfully on the arm.

“Oh, Phil.” He pulled himself up by Phil’s shoulder, breathing into his ear seductively. “You needn’t have spared my feelings. Don’t think I’ve never felt the downside of being this dangerously attractive...”

Phil shot him a dry sideways glance and looked like he was about to reply with something, when the bathroom door opened again.

“Okay, I borrowed this from Bobbi, what do you think?” Natasha asked, stepping into the room with her arms held out to the sides, a sceptical look on her face. She had put on her evening dress. “Good?”

Clint let out a strangled cough as his words got stuck in his throat and he noticed to his pleasure that Coulson’s jaw had dropped a little too.

“Uhm,” Phil cleared his throat, nodding. “Yes.” A smile spread on his face. “You look stunning.”

Grinning, Natasha looked at Clint, who nodded dumbly in agreement.

“Uhm, yeah. Wow,” he muttered and Natasha looked smugly satisfied. Careful not to mess up the fabric, she picked up the long, green skirt of the dress and raised the hem off the floor.

“Good. Now... shoes.” She looked around the floor for her heels.

“Next door,” Phil motioned to the adjacent room. “Somewhere by Clint’s kit, I think...”

Nodding, as if she remembered, Natasha left to get them. Leaning forward a little to look after her, Clint shook his head.

“ _Why_ am I no longer dating her?” He looked at Phil. “Was I _drunk_ when I agreed to be just friends? You were there! How could you possibly let me agree to it?”

“I remember you having a grand moment of chivalry and moral fibre,” Phil chuckled, adjusting his bow tie and getting up. “You were proving strength of character, Barton. I was too awestruck to act.”

Clint let his face sink into his hands with a tragic sob.

“Forever alone...”

Laughing, Phil smacked the back of Clint’s head.

“I’ll let you be my hot boyfriend next time.” He took a step back. “Okay, so will you let me take her out looking like this?”

Frowning darkly at Phil, Clint narrowed his eyes.

“Are your intentions pure?”

“Pure as the flower of your maidenhood.”

“Pure enough,” Clint muttered, motioning Phil to turn around. “No funny business?”

“Just some solid, old-fashioned espionage topped off with a good soprano.” Turning back around to Clint, Phil raised both his eyebrows inquiringly. “So?”

Clint took a moment to eye him up.

“I can’t get over the cuff links,” he eventually sighed and flopped back onto the bed.

“My comm is hidden in those cuff links!” Coulson kicked Clint in the leg. “And what you can’t get over is the idea of sleeves in general...!”

“Tasha hides her comm in her cleavage,” Clint grinned. “I know because she asked me to help her wire it into her bra...”

“Well, I’m not letting you anywhere near my bra,” Phil replied, slightly leaning over Clint, who was poking an arrow at him.

“Boys,” Natasha called from the next room. “Maria’s asking how it’s going.”

Straightening up, Phil slapped Clint’s knee and left for the adjacent bedroom.

“You better be working your ass like this at the opera!” Clint called after him before rolling off the bed himself and joining the two.

The second bedroom was cluttered with tech and equipment. Clint’s kit took up most of the bed, together with Natasha’s suitcase, but the small writing table and all other suitable surfaces were covered in cables and accommodated a number of different computer screens, cameras and control panels.

Natasha sat in front of one of the screens, one of her shoes on her lap. She appeared to be fixing her heel, which could come apart to reveal a small blade.

“ _Coulson, Barton_ ,” Maria Hill greeted them when they entered the scope of the camera. “ _Looking smart, Phil. Situation?_ ”

“Confirmed that Leone herself is going to be at the opera. They checked in about three hours ago and are currently in their rooms. We’re dispatching Hawkeye in a bit and leaving for the performance shortly afterwards. Barton will keep an eye on Leone and her gang on their way from the hotel to the opera and inform us should anything suspicious go on while we’re inside. If anyone gets away he’ll be good to set after them.”

Hill nodded and looked at Barton.

“ _You got a good spot?_ ”

“Yes,” Clint replied. “Scouted all day, but I think if I stay on the roof of the opera I should be able to see both the hotel and what’s going on at the venue, as well as pretty much everything in between.”

Frowning at a computer screen out of sight, Hill nodded.

“ _Looks good. You’ll also be able to keep our escape route clear._ ” She looked back up at Phil. “ _Emergency kits in place?_ ”

“At the train station,” Phil nodded. “I’ll be keeping an eye on Leone inside, Natasha is going to find out who her contact is and look after them.”

“ _We could send you backup if you wait until tomorrow_ ,” Maria replied, seemingly not very satisfied with having all three of them involved in the action. “ _I’m not happy with only running this remotely._ ”

“I can still do Mission Control from the box,” Phil said, taking out a small data tablet. “We’ve been chasing them so long, we can’t risk losing our cover now. Are you going to be Remote?”

“ _Yes, with one eye_ ,” Maria confirmed. “ _Sitwell and his team will be with me, he’ll keep both eyes on the channel and the satellites. He’s getting coffee right now._ ”

“Do you have remote access to the tech in case we can’t make it back here?”

“ _Yeah. I just beat your Minesweeper score._ ”

“It was Natasha’s,” Phil replied and Natasha looked up from fixing her shoe.

“What? I don’t have to be good with bombs. I’m a spy!”

“And such a subtle one, too,” Clint grinned and Hill rolled her eyes.

“ _You better not take this too lightly, though,_ ” she said, glaring at them. “ _We’re not flying you to Vienna for vacation and some cultural shenanigans. This is business. We called you in because we can’t risk fucking this up._ ”

“Sorry,” Phil replied, taking his evening jacket off the nearby stool it had been laid out on. “I know and I promise, we’re prepared. But it’s the opera. Richard Strauss excites me.”

Hill raised an eyebrow, but then apparently thought better of whatever she’d wanted to say. She shook her head.

“ _Just make sure you find Leone’s contact. We need to know whom she’s making business with. And above all, if there’s actually a transaction, get your hands on whatever is exchanged, no matter what. We cannot afford to be slack in this department, not with the kind of reports Ferrante’s sending home._ ”

“Understood.”

***

There was a clicking in Clint’s ear and the muted sound of applause was audible, accompanied by the rustling of clothes.

“ _Barton_ ,” Natasha’s quiet voice could be heard.

“Please tell me it’s over,” Clint groaned, shifting in his position on the roof. “Nothing is happening. It’s starting to rain. I’m starving. There’s a Subway across the street...”

“ _Only the interval now,_ ” she replied. “ _Sorry. But we think we’ve located Leone’s contact. Bunch of Hungarian guys, one of them might have treasure. Gonna do some mingling once Phil’s back from the toilet..._ ”

“Is he powdering his nose after sobbing his little heart out over Jochanaan?”

Natasha chuckled.

“ _We’ve not reached that part yet. I sent him to place his bugs and sensors as long as he’s still holding it together._ ”

Clint shook his head and grinned. There was more rustling of clothes and muted talking and Clint concluded that Coulson had returned to their box and they were now leaving for some _mingling_.

Stalking along the edge of the roof, making sure not to attract attention or get caught on anybody’s tourist photo of the Viennese opera by night, Clint let his gaze wander across the busy street below.

Their hotel, visible further down the Ringstraße, looked quiet. Through the bare branches of the trees, Clint could see into their hotel rooms, lights still on so Clint could spot immediately if something was wrong.

Two storeys up, the windows of Leone’s rooms were as dark as they had been all evening. Nothing seemed to be moving, nobody had left the hotel and Natasha had bugged all other exits in the afternoon in case someone had planned to leave through the back door. Sitwell had an eye on the place via satellite, but it was all quiet except for some staff changing shifts.

Clint glanced up at the dark sky, hoping the clouds would hold it together for a while longer.

SHIELD had been on Francesca Leone’s track for over a year. She had emerged from the Italian mafia scene as a somewhat independent criminal after her father’s death, not entirely free from the ‘family’, but not really part of it, either. There were indicators that she sympathised with Hydra to a degree, but various sources had confirmed that Strucker, ever an arrogant prick, considered her too small a fish to actually make business with her.

One of Sitwell’s advanced junior agents had kept an eye on Leone and her various dealings with the European underground, her vain tries of making herself more interesting to the people she actually wanted to associate with. SHIELD hadn’t been particularly worried until one of Ferrante’s reports had established an unconfirmed, but possible connection between her and an incident at General Ross’ research facility, which had instantly upgraded Leone’s status of Level 3 ‘wannabe villain’ to Level 6.5 ‘call Coulson’.

Clint found his balance and jumped down to a lower part of the roof. The Vienna opera building was nothing if not pompous.

He, Natasha and Coulson had been on Leone’s case for about three weeks, following her from Rome to Madrid, then to a tiny place in Switzerland, where Leone had ditched her former company in favour of a bunch of men in suits, before moving on to Vienna. So far she had been extremely careful about staying out of trouble’s way, had sent minions to do her dirty work, had travelled in several, separate parties and had obliterated anyone who might have presented a security risk. The fact that she herself was present at the opera that night was ominous. At least that’s what Coulson thought.

Clint didn’t exactly know what it was that Leone apparently had in her possession that was so valuable. The specifics of Ferrante’s Ross-operation were somewhere between Level 6 and Fury and therefore out of Clint’s league, but the fact that the mission briefing had included a review of the biohazard safety procedures had given him to understand it was probably bad. Especially since retrieving the object of the trade had higher priority than arresting Leone or her mystery business partner.

“ _Barton? Talk to me._ ”

“I’m on a horse,” Clint replied, pausing a moment to give Phil some time to roll his eyes. He moved one of his legs and straightened up, holding on to the statue’s waist and glancing past the lyre in front of his face. “All quiet. No sign of movement. What about you?”

“ _Sipping champagne and waiting for a good occasion for Natasha to flirt with the Hungarians and find out which one of them is Leone’s contact,_ ” Phil smiled quietly, his voice low and intimate.

“Are you standing there talking into your cuff link like a tool right now?” Clint replied amusedly and Phil chuckled lowly.

“ _No, I am leaning into Natasha and talking down her cleavage,_ ” Coulson replied and Clint could hear Natasha giggle.

“ _You should see us,_ ” she muttered breathily and Clint thought he was going to be sick when Coulson let out what sounded like a lusty growl.

“There is no way you’re not being seriously creepy right now,” he replied. “Stop it. Nobody’s going to buy it, Coulson.” He paused and listened, his face darkening. “Are those kissy noises? They better not be kissy noises.”

“ _Stop cockblocking the mission, Barton._ ”

Clint snorted when more rustling of clothes and some muttering he couldn’t make out reached his ear. He decided to move, hopping off the pegasus and climbing back up to a higher part of the roof.

“ _Targets vulnerable. Moving now,_ ” Natasha muttered. “ _I’ll see you later..._ ”

 

By the time the performance inside recommenced, Clint had listened in on Natasha and Phil’s mingling in a state of advanced horror. From what Natasha had said in her conversation, Clint would have doubted whether she was capable of holding a champagne glass the right way up if he hadn’t known her, and if he hadn’t been so in awe of the amount of information she was getting out of people. She’d had the contact identified and his two bodyguards wrapped around her little finger by the time Clint had switched to listen in to Coulson’s channel, where Coulson had been busy engaging Leone’s companion in sophisticated small talk.

‘Sophisticated small talk’ that had contained suggestive subtext on a level Clint hadn’t known anyone was capable of, really. And in _public_ , too...

“ _Barton?_ ” Coulson’s voice tore Clint from his thoughts.

“I will never look at you the same way again, Coulson,” Clint replied darkly. “Have you no shame? At your age!”

“ _Not all of us grow prudish when we hit thirty, Barton._ ” He sounded smug, then sobered up. “ _Natasha’s joined the Hungarians in their box. Can’t see them from here; they’re more or less right above me, but she’ll keep an eye on them and give a signal if anything happens._ ”

“What about Leone and her companion?” Clint asked, ignoring the comment about his age.

“ _Sitting a row below me, slightly to the left. She can’t see me,_ ” Coulson mumbled. “ _Don’t think she’ll be the one making a move, though. She’s got someone planted in the building who’ll do the dirty work for her. Not sure why she came at all; it doesn’t make sense and I don’t like it._ ”

“She might just like opera. Some weirdos do,” Clint smirked, figuring Coulson had somehow extracted the bit about Leone’s messenger from the dirty talk with his newest pick up.

“ _Imagine that_ ,” Coulson chuckled.

“Everything’s still quiet here,” Clint reported, looking around warily. “Subway has a two for one deal on the Sub of the Day. Should I save you one?”

“ _I just had canapés,_ ” Coulson replied, smiling. “ _Curtain’s going up again. I’ll see you later._ ” 

Clint grimaced and rubbed his eyes, continuing to prowl the roof while listening half-heartedly to the music that came through Coulson’s still activated comm. He had only just returned to his spot by one of the two pegasus statues above the main entrance when his comm clicked.

“ _Barton._ ” It was Coulson’s mission voice.

“Sir,” Clint replied, scanning the street below just in case he was missing something.

“ _Natasha’s given the signal. The contact is moving and she’s on it. Keep an eye out now._ ”

“Understood.”

Clint could hear fumbling noises and a moment later Coulson’s voice was a lot clearer, which meant he had taken out his cuff links and switched to wearing them like the earpiece they could transform into. Which also meant that shit was going down now.

“ _Sensors report that all exits are currently clear,_ ” Coulson said and the clicking of his gun was audible. “ _Natasha?_ ”

“ _The contact left the box after his phone vibrated. I created an excuse to leave as soon as I could. Sorry it took so long, but the guy decided to get bashful. I’m on my way_ ,” Natasha’s voice replied. “ _As soon as I’ve deposited the body somewhere..._ ”

“ _I hope that body’s just unconscious?_ ” Coulson asked.

“ _I hope so too._ ”

Clint cleared his throat reproachfully when Coulson didn’t.

“ _Found the contact,_ ” she said a moment later. “ _He’s heading towards the staff areas._ ”

“On my way,” Clint replied, swiftly moving across the roof, his bow in hand. Perching on a high spot from which he had a good view of the exits through which the man was likely to make his escape, should he decide to make one, he watched carefully.

“ _He’s entered an office,_ ” Natasha reported. “ _Door seems soundproof... or no, wait. I can hear voices. Three, maybe four..._ ”

“I’ve got movement, too,” Clint reported. “A van’s pulled up behind the opera. Looks suspicious. Two men coming out, both armed. They’re waiting.”

“ _Leone’s not moving,_ ” Coulson muttered. “ _She either feels very safe, or she’s waiting for something. Natasha?_ ”

“ _I’m going in,_ ” Natasha said.

“ _Remember to be careful about whatever treasure you find. That goes for you too when you shoot, Barton,_ ” Coulson muttered. “ _This stuff could be radioactive. I’m not kidding._ ”

“Got it,” Clint replied, watching the driver of the van below tap the steering wheel nervously. His bow was drawn, his eyes focused on the target, his ears listening for movements elsewhere on the roof.

“ _Three, two, one..._ ” Natasha breathed.

The racket of her breaking down the door was louder over the comm than expected and Clint could hear surprised voices, along with Natasha’s very firm and calm demands to get on the floor and not move. There was shuffling, babbling in what seemed to be Hungarian, and some Italian cursing. Leone’s hitman didn’t sound too pleased with his situation of being tied up and stuffed into a files closet by Natasha.

The hissing sound of Natasha’s wristbands was audible; then it was quiet.

“ _I’ve got it,_ ” she eventually spoke. “ _Small box, size of my cell phone. A sealed vial containing green liquid is inside. Nothing else on either of them, I’m getting out._ ”

“Sounds like a plan,” Clint confirmed, his eyes still on the van below. “Back door’s a bad idea, though.”

“ _Copy. Taking a side exit._ ”

Clint smirked.

“Coulson, tell me what I’m gonna do about the van?”

“ _Nothing for now._ ” Coulson’s voice was calm. “ _We don’t want to cause an incident. As long as they stay outside, we’re fine._ ”

“ _Except they’re not,_ ” Natasha pressed out. “ _My way is blocked. Those guys were in the box next to the Hungarians, so I’m guessing they’re part of the crew. I gotta take a detour. Will be a bit longer..._ ”

“I could create a diversion,” Clint muttered and Coulson seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“ _No. Not yet. Once they’re on definite alert, it’ll be harder for Natasha to get out. Remember, bringing back the treasure is utmost priority. Once that is done we take care of the Hungarians and Leone._ ”

“Understood.”

It was quiet for a moment, then Coulson spoke again.

“ _Two of the top row boxes are empty,_ ” he said. “ _Looks like she made sure to bring backup._ ”

“ _I’m noticing that,_ ” Natasha pressed out in reply. “ _They’ve surrounded the staff area and blocked my exit. Someone’s going to spot me soon. ... Phil, we have to re-organise. Do you have my position?_ ”

“ _Yes. You’re one floor down, Northwest staff exit, right around the corner._ ”

“ _Okay, listen up. I’m going to dump the box into the trash can next to the staff toilet doors,_ ” Natasha spoke. “ _And then I’m going to take care of the Hungarians. I’ll lead them away towards the main entrance and keep the Northwest one open for you. Give me five minutes, then you go, pick it up, and disappear._ ”

Clint shook his head.

“That gives Leone time to slip away. Why don’t I go; I just need to swing down-”

“ _No,_ ” Natasha replied and Clint could hear a male voice shout out in the background. It looked like she was getting started on her plan already. “ _Clint, you have to stay on the roof and make sure Coulson gets away clear. The treasure has priority. Copy?_ ”

Clint took a moment to think about it.

“Copy. Phil?”

Coulson didn’t reply immediately. Sounds of people getting beaten up were audible from Natasha’s end of the line.

“Phil?” Clint frowned, wondering whether something might have gone wrong, then the reply came.

“ _Copy. Guess this is our best shot, I’m on my way. Barton,_ ” he added quietly. “ _You gotta do some running for me. Get to the main entrance and make sure no more traps are waiting for Natasha._ ”

“What about you?” Clint asked, already on his way.

“ _I have a gun and it’s quiet here now. She’s taken the whole circus with her..._ ” Coulson’s echoing steps could be heard. “ _You make sure she gets out fine without nasty surprises, I’ll tell you when I’m good to go and you come back to the rear exit..._ ”

Taking cover by one of the pegasus statues above the main entrance, Clint scanned the street below. Nothing suspicious seemed to be happening, but he had an arrow nocked anyway. The crowd of tourists had thinned a little, since it had started to get rather cold, but so close to the centre the streets didn’t get as quiet as Clint would have liked. Quietly cursing all the goddamn people who had to walk around in the middle of the goddamn night, he listened for instructions.

“ _Almost out, only three still behind me. The opera staff are all gone, what the fuck,_ ” Natasha muttered and Clint braced himself.

“Guess Leone took care of them. Coulson?”

“ _Got the box. Two minutes._ ”

Wetting his lips, Clint thought he could hear commotion below. A loud thudding noise reached his ear through his comm and he hoped that was just the sound of Natasha making her escape. The line crackled for a bit, then went quiet.

“Natasha!” Clint called lowly, but no reply came. He told himself it was nothing. She was as good as out; her comm had probably just slipped, moved, disconnected. It was hardly surprising with her fighting style...

Seconds were ticking loudly in Clint’s head and he swallowed. He was running out of time. Natasha’s end of the comm line transmitted nothing but rustling sounds of fabric.

“I’m going back now,” he spoke, already moving across the roof again. “Coulson?”

A loud bang coming from the main entrance made him stop and turn around, just in time to see the quick flash of the laser beam dancing across his chest. Throwing himself back and to the ground, he thought he could see the bullet pass over him, leaving his face hot. Somewhere behind him rock splinters were flying.

“Shit,” he burst out. “Sniper.”

Coulson’s voice in his ear was very, very quiet.

“ _Find Natasha and go._ ”

There was something in Phil’s voice that made Clint’s blood freeze.

“What,” he croaked, turning to hurry back to the front of the building. “Have they got her?”

“ _I hope not,_ ” Phil replied. “ _But they’ve got me._ ”

The line died. Clint could feel the roof under his feet vibrate and a heartbeat later, he felt the shockwave of an explosion throw him back.

 

The fire alarm was ringing and people were running his way, screaming hysterically. Dodging a fat man in a tux who came barrelling towards him, Clint tried to find Natasha in the entrance hall of the opera, where panic was currently breaking out. A member of staff stepped into his way, telling him to leave, as the building was currently on fire, but Clint yelled at him and continued to call Natasha’s name.

A tap on his arm made him whirl around and he exhaled with force when he saw Natasha.

“Clint, what the he-”

“They’ve got Phil,” Clint burst out and Natasha’s eyes widened. “We have to-”

“Have you alerted Remote?” Natasha shoved a hand down her cleavage and retrieved her comm link, activating it and putting it in her ear as she dragged Clint out of the crowd into a sheltered corner behind a pillar.

“Hill? Sitwell?” she called and Clint tuned his own earpiece into Remote Mission Control channel, where a lot of voices were talking agitatedly in the background.

“ _-hell are they doing I don’t- Romanoff?_ ” Sitwell’s voice was audible.

“Romanoff here,” Natasha replied. “Things went wrong.”

“ _We noticed; Hill’s on her way here out of a meeting. The hell is Barton doing, we’ve been trying to contact him-_ ”

“Sorry,” Clint interrupted. “Was busy falling off the roof.”

“ _Status?_ ”

“I’m okay. Nothing broken.”

“ _What happened? Where the hell is Coulson?_ ”

“Looks like it was a trap,” Natasha muttered, looking past Clint at the rapidly emptying opera hall. “I got the treasure, but they had me surrounded. I dropped it for Phil to pick it up. Only now they’ve got Phil and the roof is on fire...”

“ _They’ve got Coulson?_ ” Sitwell sounded like his worst nightmare had come true and Clint wanted to punch him.

“Yes,” he muttered, heart hammering in his throat. “We have to get him out.”

“ _Shit,_ ” Sitwell muttered and audibly typed something into his computer. “ _Okay, I got the satellites. The roof’s on fire, fire brigade and police are already around the corner... you better get away from there..._ ”

“Any sign of Leone and her gang? There was a black van...!”

“ _Not in this chaos, Barton,_ ” Sitwell pressed out and gave a couple of orders to people in the same room as him. “ _Going to check traffic cameras and satellites. Ryke’s on it._ ” He paused. “ _Tracking Coulson’s earpiece... why are you still in there? Move!_ ”

“Because I’m not going to leave Phil here!” Clint snapped and Ryke’s voice joined into the conversation.

“ _Guys, you better get out of the place,_ ” he said. “ _The police are surrounding the building, firefighters are on their way and from what I hear over their radio it seems like they’re after you, Hawkeye. They’re calling Cobra._ ”

“What?” Clint looked around, then pressed Natasha further into the little corner. “Why?”

“ _Oh, I dunno,_ ” Sitwell replied. “ _Maybe because you fell off an exploding roof carrying a fucking bow and a gun and then stormed back into the building... did you have your resting face on, too?_ ”

“ _Get the hell out of the opera,_ ” Maria Hill’s breathless voice was now audible. “ _Came as fast as I could. Okay, Jasper, give me the quick version..._ ”

When Sitwell began to explain to Hill what was going on, Clint lost it.

“We have to go back!” he protested, looking at Natasha for support. “They’ve got Phil, we can’t just...!”

“ _Barton, it looks like I have lost one agent, I can’t risk another two, so get the fuck away! We’re sending for backup, in the meantime it’s code FUBAR._ ”

“But how long’s that gonna take?” Clint began, shaking his head violently. Code FUBAR was short for ‘abort mission and save your own ass’.

“ _Barton,_ ” Maria threatened, sounding - as usual - like she was fed up with him already.

“Natasha! We have to get to the back...!”

Natasha didn’t reply, only grabbed Clint by his arm and dragged him away. Running down a side corridor, trying to avoid the groups of firefighters and policemen that were beginning to flood into the building, they could hear the voices of Remote Control in their ears.

“ _I get a weak signal for Coulson,_ ” Ryke reported. “ _Moving... Northeast towards the Danube Canal._ ”

“ _Follow it,_ ” Hill ordered. “ _It might be a feint. Keep an eye on all channels and make sure Phil’s not still in the building. Do you have the police channel?_ ”

“Let’s go,” Natasha muttered when a group of shouting firefighters came into view ahead. Shoving Clint through one of the windows onto the street, she followed after him, pulling him off the ground and away from the opera into the crowds of curious, shocked bystanders.

“Natasha!” Clint panted, stumbling after her, wondering how she could be this fast on heels. “Wait!”

“Ryke, give me news on the FUBAR route,” Natasha spoke into her earpiece, never letting go of Clint as they ran South across the Ringstraße, where all traffic had come to a standstill. A couple of policemen standing in front of the opera spotted Clint and started to shout after them, but Clint wasn’t going to acknowledge them as long as they weren’t shooting, which they weren’t.

“ _Subway line 1 should be there in two, three minutes,_ ” Ryke reported. “ _Two stops. The streets above are jammed because of the fire at the opera._ ”

“Come on!” Natasha urged Clint on as they hurried down the stairs to the subway station.

“Natasha, we’re going the wrong direction!” Clint protested, ignoring the people staring at them as she pushed him into the subway train, a second before the doors closed. When he turned around to face her, he felt a little sting in his side and a sudden feeling of dizziness overcame him. He blinked, watching her slip on the gilded evening version of her wristbands that she’d kept hidden... he wasn’t sure _where_ she’d kept them... but...

“What the fuck are you doing...” he muttered, swaying, and she steadied him against one of the poles inside the train car.

“Saving your neck from Hill. Get a fucking grip, Barton,” she hissed, smiling apologetically at the other passengers, as if she was embarrassed of the drunken hooligan she was with. Looking back at him, her eyes sought his. “What are you, Level 3? Keep it together. That is an order.”

He glared at her, unable to say anything because of the oncoming wave of nausea that shook his body. He voice had the same deadpan quality as Coulson’s whenever he verbally manhandled Clint into obedience.

“You propose we go after Leone like this? How much ammo do you have? How much money? Huh?” she hissed and he closed his eyes, furrowing his brow as he tried to come up with a reply. She grabbed his quiver harness and shook him. “You gonna sprint after that van, across Vienna and beyond? _Think_ , Clint! We need to get our kits and get changed, then we need a plan. So cut the crap and pull yourself together, or I’ll have Coulson shoot both your kneecaps off when we find him.”

Before he knew what happened, she pushed him out of the train again and they were hurrying up the escalators into the shabby-looking train station, heading for the lockers.

“Take Phil’s kit along,” Natasha muttered when Clint pulled out the sports bag that contained his emergency equipment.

“Why?”

“Because he packed a toothbrush and you never do.”

“I think it’s bad luck,” Clint replied, but pulled the second bag out of the locker before stepping back so Natasha could slam it shut.

When Clint left the train station restrooms ten minutes later, having changed into street clothes and feeling less dizzy than before, Natasha was waiting for him, wearing jeans, t-shirt, a ragged pair of converse sneakers and a fake leather jacket. She’d put on a dark brown wig and had removed all her make-up, which instantly took five years off her. She smiled at him brightly and let go of the straps of her backpack to wrap her arms around his neck, adjusting his ginger wig in the process and pecking him on the lips.

One heavy sports bag in each hand, Clint decided to just go along with it.

Grabbing his arm, she led him away from the toilets into the entrance hall of the station. She was walking slowly, casually and Clint wanted to scream with impatience when she stopped to look at a kebap stand, the only place that was still open this late at night, apparently contemplating whether or not she was hungry. He stopped fidgeting when he felt her fingernails dig into the inside of his elbow.

“Breathe. Calm down.”

Under the shaggy hair of his wig, Clint’s earpiece came to life again. While they were merely awaiting instructions, he had tuned out the big noise of the Remote channel, on which half of SHIELD seemed to be speaking all at once, and stuck to Mission Control, which transmitted merely Hill and Sitwell.

“ _Attention, all units. Coulson’s signal stops about twenty-five miles down the A4 out of Vienna,_ ” Hill informed them. “ _We confirmed that the escape vehicle is the same black van that Barton saw behind the opera. We’ve got a team coming down from Bratislava and a stealth unit on their way from Salzburg. We have a Viennese contact on her way down the A4 to check on the situation at the car. For now we assume they changed vehicles. We’ve contacted airport security in case they’ve got a plane waiting._ ”

Which meant they had either left Coulson’s earpiece behind in the van, or Coulson’s body, Clint swallowed.

“Barton here. What about us?” he asked, his throat tight as he let Natasha push him down onto a metal bench in the almost deserted waiting area. It was Ryke, who answered.

“ _All security in Vienna is alerted to your existence,_ ” he sighed. “ _Every last subway safety officer’s been informed and is looking for you, it's impressive. I hope you’ve got your bow damn well concealed..._ ”

“We got changed, should keep them off for a bit,” Natasha threw in and Ryke muttered something. Maria Hill answered him on their end and the two spoke for a moment. Then Ryke turned back to the microphone.

“ _We’ll send someone to take care of it. But for now we want you to get out of the city. Doesn’t have to be far,_ ” he added when Clint inhaled sharply. “ _And we’re not taking you off the case, but we need some time, like, one or two days maybe, to get the authorities off our back. The EU is our super special friend when it comes to that..._ ”

Clint’s words died in his throat. Two days. Two whole days of waiting, while Coulson...

He hated the idea, really. Every moment they lost, every moment they wasted...

He hardly registered Natasha copying Ryke’s order and switching off her earpiece. When she got up and held out her hand to him, he saw the determination in her eyes.

“Train is leaving in five minutes, honey,” she said, her voice heavily accented.

***

“Conan O’Doogle?” Clint muttered. “I have a feeling Fury’s not really taking these things seriously.”

Looking darkly through his fake papers, a passport, driving licence, interrail pass, he glanced over at Natasha, who was doing the same.

“Anya Smirnova,” he read and Natasha rolled her eyes.

“It’ll do,” she said, throwing a quick glance out of the compartment before closing the door and drawing the curtains. They had walked down almost the entire length of the already moving train to the very last carriage. It was the only one that contained standard compartments. The rest of the train was sleeping cars, since it was a night train to Romania, or somewhere thereabouts. Clint had followed Natasha more or less blindly.

“I’m pretty sure we need a reservation for this train,” Natasha muttered and glanced at Clint. “Let me handle that.”

“I’ll throw them off with my Irish accent,” Clint replied tiredly, feeling worn out all of a sudden, worry still nagging at the back of his head. “And who knows, we might be gone before a conductor shows up.”

Slumping down and snuggling up to Clint, who was leaning against the window, Natasha gazed out into the darkness, occasional lights flashing by. It was quiet for a moment and Clint, who hadn’t turned his earpiece off yet, half-listened to Sitwell and Hill passing information to and fro. Police radio informed them that Coulson’s body was not among the ones that had been found inside the opera. Some retired agent living in Vienna had been sent to take care of the equipment at the hotel. The black van had been found parked on the breakdown lane right after a short tunnel, Phil’s earpiece in the back along with the phial Natasha had taken off Leone’s man. Labs were running tests on the substance inside. 

There was no trace of Phil himself, or Leone, or anyone else. In the meantime, Maria was making calls to get the police and Cobra off Clint’s back. She sounded even angrier when she spoke German.

All the while shades of darkness flew by outside the window. 

“He’s going to be all right,” Natasha spoke softly and Clint shook his head. He was picking at his left thumb, flinching when his skin tore and a small drop of blood came out.

“This is Agent Coulson we’re talking about,” Natasha continued. “He knows how to handle situations like this, Clint, better than most people, even at SHIELD...” 

He knew, of course Clint knew all this. Coulson was hardly new to missions going south, no matter where on or outside the battlefield he was. If anyone could handle the situation, it was Phil Coulson, but it didn’t keep the cogs in Clint’s head from turning frantically.

“I just... how could this even happen? I should have blown up the stupid van.”

“He ordered you not to.”

“Yeah, see? That’s what happens when I obey fucking orders...”

She pressed a kiss to the side of his neck and rubbed his arm comfortingly.

“There’s no point in tripping down guilt lane. It’s done, they’ve got him - they’re not going to kill him, Clint,” she added firmly and Clint snorted. “They’d have done it already.”

Clint wasn’t entirely sure how that was supposed to make him feel any better, but there was something in her voice that calmed him down, caught his attention. She sounded like she had a plan.

“What-” he began, but a gentle knock on the door shut him up. The conductor stuck his head in, eyeing them both warily.

“Guten Abend. Die Fahrkarten, bitte.”

Clint jerked away from the window, shuffling for his papers and throwing Natasha a slightly helpless look as he handed her his ticket and passport. Natasha sat up and offered everything to the conductor, babbling out phrases in German mixed with English, all of it with a heavy Russian accent.

The conductor frowned and waved to shut her up, then began talking to her in a firm voice, his face dark. Natasha sighed and looked at Clint, seemingly distressed. Then she turned back to the man, gesturing and explaining. Clint thought he could make out that she was saying something along the lines of “we didn’t know we needed a reservation”, but he wasn’t sure how successful or convincing she was being. He’d had a basic course in German, but Austrian pronunciation went over his head.

The conductor listened to Natasha, his beady eyes flickering past her at Clint every couple of seconds. In the end he shook his head and said something in mumbled German. He looked at Clint and asked something.

Clint pulled his shoulders up and shook his head.

“I don’t speak German, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, glancing at Natasha for a second before throwing the conductor an apologetic look. The man began to look slightly insecure and Clint figured he probably hadn’t understood a word. His Irish accent was that good.

“This,” the conductor said, gesturing with the tickets in his hand. “Not enough. Not good.”

“Maybe we can pay it now? Wir bezahlen jetzt?” Natasha pleaded and Clint had to keep himself from rolling his eyes at her display of ‘damsel in distress’. She fumbled with her hair, brushing some strands out of her face and Clint watched with vague amusement how the conductor’s face began to fall a little. He took a deep breath, then looked at the tickets. The lines around his eyes began to soften as he looked at Natasha, even if he shot Clint a slightly dirty look.

“I see if it’s possible,” he said and stepped back out into the corridor, pointing towards the front of the train. “I ask my colleague.”

“I can come with you,” Natasha replied instantly, getting her money out of her bag and smiling. “Thank you so much. This is so nice of you. We are really so sorry...”

Leaving the compartment, she threw Clint her leather jacket and an extremely smug grin the conductor couldn’t see.

“I’ll be back. Check the right breast pocket and see what you can make of it in the meantime.”

 

When she returned ten minutes later with their papers and seat reservations, Clint was staring at the cell phone in his hands, pressing buttons and frowning at symbols.

“How’s it going?”

“Where did you get this?” Clint asked, his face lightening up when the language on the small screen changed to English.

“Took it off Leone’s contact,” she replied, sitting down next to him. “Conductor won’t bother us again.”

“Did you knock him dead?” Clint muttered, still focusing on the cell phone. Natasha rolled her eyes.

“No. Let’s just say I can be convincing if I want to.” She shuffled closer and pressed herself against his side, peeking at the screen. He glanced at her, gesturing with the phone.

“Suppose Ryke or Sitwell could try and track the numbers in the log. There’s nothing else on there...”

“Good thought. Ring them,” Natasha nodded, taking the phone from his hands while Clint tried to reach Remote through his in-ear.

“There might be fingerprints,” Clint continued, waiting for someone to respond. “We can’t really count on finding good ones on the outside, but once we’re off the train and have found a quiet place, I could take it apart and see if there’s any on the battery... Sitwell?” He paused, then sighed when a junior agent answered. “Yeah, okay. No, I guess I can wait. Yeah. Okay. No, we’re on the train, all is well. Yeah. Whenever he’s got time.”

The train loudspeakers crackled to announce the next stop and the train began to slow down, causing Natasha’s backpack to fall over. Clint moved to stand up and get his gear, when Natasha suddenly reached out and held him back.

“What?” he asked, slightly irritated. “They said one stop was enough!”

“Wait. I have... a theory,” she replied, speaking carefully. “Possibly a plan.”

Clint looked at her, slightly bewildered at how serious she was all of a sudden, and sat back down. Figuring she probably didn’t want Remote to listen in, he shook his head and switched his earpiece off again. 

“A theory,” he began and she pressed her lips together, eyes darting out of the window at the first lights of the upcoming train station moving past in the dark. She looked at Clint.

“Do you trust me?”

“Nat...” Clint began, but slumped back against his seat. He groaned loudly. “Oh, fuck me. Is that why you were so quick to get away from there?” He pointed over his shoulder to indicate Vienna and glared at her guilty expression. “And you couldn’t have mentioned something earlier?”

“You had to get a grip first,” she replied and Clint closed his eyes, groaning. “But yes.”

“You and your goddamn plans,” he muttered and gestured out through the window. “So what, I take it we don’t get off here?”

The train came to a halt and Natasha ran a hand through her hair, not replying. Clint rubbed his temples and his shoulders sagged, as if in defeat.

“Okay. Go on, then. Is Hill going to hate us for this?”

“Possibly,” Natasha replied and Clint looked mildly pacified. “Depends. But I think this could save us some time.”

“Could?”

“Well, unless I’m wrong.”

The train was starting to move again and Clint threw up his arms half-heartedly.

“Shoot.”

Natasha sat down opposite him.

“Okay, listen. I think the whole thing was a trap,” she began and Clint couldn’t help bursting out a laugh.

“You don’t say! When did you get promoted to Level Obvious?” he replied, sarcasm dripping from his words and Natasha slapped his knee.

“Stop being a dick, Barton,” she admonished. “I’m serious. Don’t you think it’s strange how easy it was for me to get my hands on the treasure, considering both Leone and the Hungarians had each at least thirty men stationed in that building?”

Clint didn’t reply. Now that she mentioned it, he was beginning to see what she meant.

“You think the transaction was a bluff?” His face darkened.

“With the current situation being what it is, we certainly have to consider that possibility,” Natasha replied. “They'll be analysing the phial and we'll find out, but think about it. Leone’s been so careful and secretive about this deal - why did her thugs only show up once I was on my way _out_? Why not while I was on my way in?”

Clint pondered her face for a moment, thoughts racing as he replayed everything that had happened, trying to keep an objective distance to the events. Slowly, pieces began to fall into place. It was true, the trouble had only started once she had already got what she’d looked for...

“Because their job wasn’t to keep you from getting the treasure, it was to make sure you were out of the way,” he concluded, his face hardening. He liked the idea less and less the longer he thought about and the clearer things became. “If they saw to it that you struggled to make your escape with the trade, they could be almost certain you weren’t going to come back and cause trouble for them if they... And me, they figured... The bomb on the roof... Shit.” He bit his lip and rubbed his face. “You’re saying they were after Phil all along.”

A hollow feeling spread in his stomach that had nothing to do with the fact that he’d been wanting food for hours. His hunger had disappeared along with his exhaustion and he felt rather sick, blood rushing in his ears.

“The whole deal was nothing but a decoy? A bait?” He looked at Natasha helplessly and she leaned back into her seat.

“I don’t know. Maybe not a mere decoy, but a secondary issue...” She shrugged. “Leone might’ve found out who was on her track and changed her plans accordingly...”

“And that’s why she was there,” Clint groaned when realisation hit him. “She knew who we were and she knew that on such short notice there wasn’t going to be time to call for backup and all three of us would be forced to go. She could guess that I’d be staying outside and that you’d be the one to go after the deal.” He paused, eyes narrowed. “All she had to do was make sure Coulson stayed behind while she got both of us out of the way. So she went to the opera herself, as bait. And it worked like a charm. How could we be so fucking naive...”

It was silent for a couple of minutes, then Natasha spoke again.

“If I hadn’t told Coulson to stay behind and get the treasure...”

“Yeah, and this is where I tell you to take your own advice,” Clint interrupted, feeling his frustration turn into a grim determination. “Shut up. What are we going to do? You said you had a plan.”

Natasha threw him a sideways glance, then continued to look out of the window.

“Well, the question is,” she began, matter-of-factly, “Now that they’ve got Phil, what are they going to do with him?”

Clint swallowed hard.

“Why would they want him in the first place?”

“Information,” Natasha said without hesitation. “Let’s face it, Coulson _knows_ shit. A lot of it, too. How many people with Level 7 clearance do you see running around?”

“Yeah, not many. Shit.” Rubbing his neck, Clint bit his lip. “What d’you think she’s after, then? What use does she have for the information?”

“She’ll find some use for it,” Natasha shrugged, narrowing her eyes. “She won’t have trouble finding someone who’ll trade for him, in any case.”

“Like Hydra,” Clint said evenly, settling into their usual mode of speculative ping-pong. “I guess Coulson is a big enough fish to get them interested, even if it’s just Leone...”

“First of all, it also means that it’s in her interest to keep Coulson alive,” Natasha threw in. “Which works in our favour. Coulson is valuable; she’s not going to want to let him go too easily. We just have to be fast enough to get him out before she hands him over...”

It was quiet again and Clint wished he had something to occupy himself with. His hands itched to check out his arrows or bow, safely stowed away in one of the duffel bags. He knew he couldn’t risk it, but just sitting and thinking made him restless.

“So, we think it’s Hydra she’s dealing him off to?” he asked and Natasha looked like she was openly guessing for the first time this evening. “I mean, chances are good, right? It makes sense. Hydra’s who she wants into bed with. If she brings them Coulson...”

“It does make sense. I can’t think of anyone else...”

“It’s got to be Hydra,” Clint replied, a little hurriedly. “If it’s Coulson they want, it’s gotta be someone big and Coulson’s SHIELD’s Hydra specialist. He's the head of Hydra research. Eight out of ten times they send us somewhere it’s ultimately got something to do with Hydra; it’s why they called him in on the case. Fury has other people to take care of everyone else...” He realised he was rambling and fell silent. Natasha wet her lips before she spoke, slowly and calmly. 

“It seems to be the most obvious choice for Leone. Not that there’s not enough other people who’d want a piece of Coulson, but Leone wouldn’t go for any of the small fish we’ve been taking care of. She’s been trying to get some recognition for so long, she’d want to play with the big boys... and Zodiac and the Hand are mainly Maria’s business; Fury himself takes care of AIM, Petrovitch... ” Natasha mused, then paused when she saw Clint’s face. “Oh, come on, Clint, I know he does, okay?”

Clint just shrugged, raising his hands defensively. Natasha frowned, seemingly trying to pick up the thread again.

“I think... given Leone’s profile, Hydra’s a good guess. Wait.” She pulled a thick map from her backpack and unfolded it. It was huge for such a small continent, Clint thought. Finding Vienna, she traced her fingernail along the the A4 out of the city, stopping roughly where the van had been abandoned. 

Clint followed the A4 line, biting his lip when he realised that, technically, Leone could just as easily have turned around to take an entirely different direction. Not to mention the airport was right around the corner... they really were guessing wildly.

“Strucker’s not much based in Europe these days,” Natasha muttered, shifting the map on her lap. “And he also might be too much of a chauvinist asshole to waste time on Leone, but...” Her finger trailed to the right. “The Viper still runs her branch of Hydra and she’s big in the Ukraine and Belarus, and, considering the mess in Timisoara three months ago, possibly also further South...”

“So the Hungarians might’ve been hers?” Clint asked and Natasha pursed her lips.

“Possibly. Or maybe they were Leone's men. But there’s no way in hell they were from Debrecen like they said they were...”

“Where’s that, Slovakia? Or was that you pretending to be dumb?”

“East end of Hungary,” Natasha smirked. “I was giving them a false sense of security. Not that it helped too much; they were still careful as hell, but I heard them talk to each other, none of those guys had an Eastern accent...” She saw Clint’s baffled look. “Petrovitch was stationed in Szeged for almost two years when I was about five. He made sure I picked up Hungarian.”

“Sounds like you ‘picked it up’ all right,” Clint muttered and Natasha smiled.

“He had his own definition of linguistic proficiency.”

“Uh-huh.”

Natasha nudged Clint’s knee and looked out of the window, where the the signs on the platform of their next stop were coming to a halt. It was past midnight and Mosonmagyarovar station was deserted. Only two people got on further at the front of the train.

“So are we going to do this?” she asked, glancing at Clint.

“Considering we’re mostly speculating? I’d say we’re a little far now to turn back anyway. Might as well go with it.” He nodded at the map, where Natasha was back to tracing railroads and highways, one of her fingers fixed on one spot. “How well do you know your way around the place?”

Natasha looked up and nodded pensively, a contemplative look on her face.

“Reasonably well. There are some old, private contacts that I didn’t give to Fury, maybe some of them are still around. The Hydra base there is pretty old, pre-World War One. I’m not sure it’s still active, but there’s places we can go to find out.”

“Okay,” Clint nodded. “Let’s do that, then. Guess it’s better than sitting around waiting for Hill to get things in line...”

“Speaking of Hill,” Natasha began and Clint raised an eyebrow.

“Do we tell her?” he asked and Natasha seemed to ponder the matter for a moment.

“No,” she replied. “Not yet. First of all, she’s busy and for all we know it might be a dead end. If it is - tough luck, she told us to get out of the way and lie low anyway. If it’s not...” she shrugged. “We can make a cleaner job of snooping around without alerting SHIELD and possibly drawing attention to ourselves. We can always tell them once we’ve actually got something to tell.”

Clint bit his lip.

“Sitwell’s trying to reach me,” he said, when his earpiece beeped. “What about him?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” Clint argued, “That as much as I agree with you about Hill, we can’t go AWOL and off the radar without cutting our comm lines. In which case they’ll know right away that we’re up to something. Plus, that’ll also shut us off from all possible updates Remote gets on Coulson and we could use those to verify our theory.” He paused and held her gaze. “It might be preferable to get someone at Remote in to cover our asses and feed us news rather than completely disappear...”

“You mean Sitwell?” Natasha pressed her lips together, seemingly pondering his suggestion. “You could be right there. And do we trust Sitwell to pull it off?”

“More than any of the others,” Clint shrugged. “He’s friends with Coulson and he trusts us more than most others do. I think he’d be willing to bend the rules for this. And he’s Level 6, so he should have access to information that could be useful...”

Natasha contemplated him for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“You’re right. Good thinking, actually...” She ran a hand through her hair. “So tell him.”

“Sitwell,” Clint spoke into his in-ear. “Yeah, we know. Listen... No, yeah, I know we’re not. Can you please listen? ...Well, actually we’ve got a plan and we need your help on this.” He paused while Sitwell spoke. “Yeah, you see, we’re on our way to Budapest...”

***

When Phil regained consciousness his body was protesting against it with every fibre. Eyes still closed, he tried to figure out where exactly the pain was coming from, or rather, where it wasn’t coming from. Every last inch of his body was aching, every nerve throbbing, and his head felt sore. He blinked and realised his left eye was glued shut with what he was going to assume was blood, probably his own. When he tried to wipe it clean, he noticed his wrists were bound behind his back. He was sitting upright, handcuffed to a chair and they had taken off his evening jacket, tie, belt and shoes.

The ground under his socked feet felt oddly stable. He frowned at his own thought that that was something notable.

He took a deep breath and focused past the pounding in his head, retrieving memories as if trying to make out figures in the fog.

Faces flashed past his mind’s eye, Fury was handing him documents, there were lights, music... the blurred insides of a car...

Phil felt the pieces fall together with a growing sense of cold alarm when he realised that he hadn’t just had an elaborate nightmare his brain had cooked up out of boredom.

They’d been at the opera, there had been champagne and people; Phil remembered their faces and voices, bits of conversation and a playful hand upon his arm... and then Leone had gotten the better of him... a trap, an explosion somewhere...

He inhaled sharply, flinching at the pain in his ribs, and he hoped that Clint and Natasha had got out alive...

The sound of an engine roaring up in the distance, followed by voices shouting, was audible from somewhere and Phil forced himself to focus on the situation. This was hardly the first time he had fallen into enemy hands; freaking out was not an option.

Blinking against the headache and the stiffness in his neck, Phil tried to look down at himself. There were no major blood stains on his clothes that indicated a serious injury, merely a couple of scratches and a dark stain on his trousers where he had apparently pissed himself. He’d been beaten up while unconscious, he assumed, but they seemed to have taken care not to cause any life-threatening damage.

Which meant they needed him alive for another while yet.

Fair enough. This wasn’t the first time he was facing hostile interrogation, either.

The room he was being held in was a perfectly plain and empty cell of maybe three square metres. A single light bulb was hanging from the high ceiling by a couple of wires and the door was made of metal and had no handle, merely a keyhole. The walls were bare and there were no windows, no wall sockets, no furniture except the chair he was tied to. Phil realised it was an old office chair with wheels, although they were either too rusty to move, or plain blocked. The room smelled of old motor oil and metal, although the latter might have been the faint taste of blood in his mouth. Running his tongue along his teeth he noted with relief that they were all still in place. Licking across his lips he felt a scab in the corner of his mouth, which was where the blood seemed to be coming from.

He cleared his throat and realised how thirsty he was. His mouth was parched and the little spit he could come up with tasted metallic.

Another loud bang was audible and Phil flexed his neck as well as he could.

Interrogation was the most likely thing ahead.

Strategy. He needed a strategy. Lines of defence...

He made a quick list of things Leone could possibly want to know. From this he made another list of things he could, under certain circumstances, let her know. He buried a couple of things she could never, ever extract from him in the depths of his mind.

Lining up snippets and bits of information in his head to form some kind of hierarchy, he mentally turned to the very likely possibility of having information extracted from him by force.

He took a deep breath.

The thought itself didn’t terrify him too much. He’d been tortured before, and by people who hadn’t been after information as much as Leone probably was. Phil had been trained by both the army and SHIELD to withstand torture, physical as well as psychological, at least for a certain amount of time. He’d had that training put to the test a couple of times, too.

He could assume with average certainty that physical pain wasn’t going to be Leone’s primary strategy. She wouldn’t have bothered to keep him in relatively good shape otherwise, and - unlike her late father - she was not a sadist. Phil Coulson was valuable; he knew that and she most certainly knew as well. Leone wasn’t someone to waste an opportunity like that; she would try to get as much advantage out of him as possible. In which case breaking him physically was probably going to be her last resort.

It might have provided comfort, if Phil had been new to the job.

While he could count on his life not being in immediate danger, he had to face the alternatives that Leone was likely to make use of to get to him - and those, Phil was afraid to say, were a lot more up her alley than breaking his bones one by one. She was going to enjoy those. A lot.

No matter what the guide book used in basic training said, a lack of weak spots did not make an agent a good agent. The truth was, everyone had a weak spot. It was knowing where it was that made the difference. 

Phil Coulson didn’t need Fury shooting him dirty looks when they argued over operation outcomes and procedures to know where his weaknesses lay. He knew, and he could expect Leone to try and hit him where it would hurt most.

Natasha and Clint.

Phil swallowed down the rush of panic that threatened to overtake his body, monitoring his thoughts carefully. There was nothing quite so dangerous as letting the mind destroy itself with anxiety and fear and Phil was not going to do Leone’s work for her.

He was better than this.

If there was one thing that excused the risk of working with his biggest weaknesses, it was that Phil had unshakable confidence in both of them, and for a reason, too. Because Clint was still Hawkeye and Hawkeye was a far better and far more reliable agent than Clint liked to admit. He’d come a long way since Phil had dusted the desert sand off him and Phil trusted him not only with his own life, but with other people’s lives. He knew that Clint would make sure Natasha was okay. And the Black Widow was the best and most valuable ally Hawkeye could ever have; she complemented him, understood him, would walk through fire for him.

Phil could count on them to keep each other safe. They were too good for Leone’s men.

Clint and Natasha were safe.

They were too good for Leone.

He clung to the thought until it was imprinted in his mind. No matter what Leone tried to make him believe; Hawkeye and the Black Widow were safe. They had left in time, they had made it out of tighter situations, so many times. They were the best agents SHIELD had ever seen.

And they were not alone. Maria and Jasper and Ryke and Fury...

Hawkeye and the Black Widow were okay.

Hawkeye and the Black Widow were safe.

He stared at the wall, repeating the sentence until the image before his eyes began to turn white. He locked the thought away in the very centre of his mind before he reviewed the hierarchy of knowledge he’d established. He wasn’t going to talk. Not for a long while. But at some point, he might. He had to keep his wits together for the moment when that happened.

Hearing footsteps approach from somewhere behind the door, he braced himself. No matter what, he was going to give them one hell of a fight.

The steps passed by the door and voices drifted by. Trying his best to relax, Phil focused on the keyhole of the door, his neck tense with anticipation. Eventually, the sound of a key being turned was audible and Phil leaned back into the chair, his face calm and even.

It was Leone herself, followed by two of her bodyguards, who glowered at Phil. Leone looked entirely unmoved and ordered one of her men to go stand behind Phil with a nod of her head. From the corner of his eyes, Phil saw the man pull something from the inside pocket of his jacket. He focused back on Leone, who contemplated him quietly.

“Agent Coulson,” she said softly. “I see you are awake.”

Phil didn’t reply. He might have been tied to a chair, but he was not going to confirm the obvious. He lifted the corner of his mouth ever so slightly in acknowledgement. Leone smiled curtly.

“I trust you are well? You are not hurt?”

Phil allowed himself a snort, glancing at the thug standing behind Leone.

“Afraid your boys didn’t do their job right?”

“Oh, I’m sure they did, as far as I could let them. After you neutralised three of their colleagues, I could hardly deny them the honour. I have better uses for you, though.”

So she was going to interrogate him, Phil mused, when another thought entered his mind. Or trade him.

Why hadn’t he thought of that possibility earlier?

“I bet you do,” he replied evenly, wondering whether he could goad her into spilling something useful.

“Indeed I do,” she answered, then frowned, as if a thought occurred to her. She looked behind her at her companion, then back at Phil, raising an eyebrow. “I’m fairly certain, though, that the loss of a couple of teeth won’t lower the market price. And Lázló here is really rather missing his twin brother, aren’t you, Lázló?”

The man Lázló grunted in reply, flexing his muscles. Phil smiled thinly.

“Maybe we should make sure the message gets across?” Leone suggested innocently, crossing her arms before her chest.

Phil’s fingers tightened into fists as the man approached him, a sturdy-looking pair of crucible tongs in his hand.

His head was jerked back by the man standing behind him and a bright light blinded him. Closing his eyes, Phil felt a hand on his jaw, digging into his cheeks until his mouth fell open.

Pain shot through his head as if his skull was being split in two.

He could hear Lázló’s breath, ragged with satisfaction.

He didn’t scream, but his wrists felt raw by the time Lázló moved away again, a satisfied grin on his face. Phil could feel blood running down his knuckles and he tried to reach them with his fingertips, smearing the warm substance across his skin.

More blood was flooding his mouth and he swallowed it automatically, without really wanting to. His stomach threatened to turn at the taste and he eyed the tooth between the ends of the tongs, deliberately ignoring the gap at the back of his jaw. Tears were stinging in his eyes and he bit them back, failing at suppressing the gasp of pain that burned in his throat.

“I hope you enjoy your remaining time with us,” Leone said gingerly. “It won’t be a long stay; maybe that comforts you.” She paused. “Or maybe not.”

She nodded at the man who still stood behind Phil. Not looking up at Leone in front of him, Phil caught a glimpse of the bodyguard, who now moved back towards the door, one of his arms held up slightly, as if aiming a gun.

It wasn’t a gun, Phil realised. The man’s fingers were wrapped around the fragile, silver casing of a camera.

Blinking at the round, black lens, Phil’s eyes widened and he jerked his head back to stare at Leone. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the man lowering the camera and a short beeping sound was followed by a gentle, mechanical buzz. Phil watched Leone take the camera from the man, patting it gently with her long fingers.

“What do you want?” he blurted out, blood spilling over his lips and dripping down his chin. Leone frowned and shook her head, as if it was all one big misunderstanding.

“Oh, I don’t want anything,” she replied. “Other people do. I’m just the one capable of supplying. And trust me, I’m going to supply.”

Lázló opened the door and she turned around to leave. Standing in the door frame, she looked back over her shoulder.

“Unfortunately,” she added, a cruel smile tugging at her lips. “The deal is for all three of you.”

Waving the camera at him, she left and the door closed behind her.

Realising what she meant, Phil felt his blood run cold.

***

Natasha’s smile was bright as she entered the lobby of the hostel.

“Szia!” she greeted the girl behind the counter, who smiled back at her.

“Did you have a nice day?” she asked and Natasha beamed at her, gripping the strap of her shoulder bag.

“Yes! I walked around the city! It’s so beautiful! Thank you so much for the map! I wanted to see everything; I’m so tired now!” Natasha sighed, her shoulders sagging with feigned exhaustion and the receptionist laughed.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, glancing at her computer screen for a moment. “Your room is ready now, by the way. I think your friend has already brought up your bags from the luggage room. Here’s your key.”

Natasha smiled brightly, taking the key and thanking the girl profusely before hurrying over to Clint, who sat on one of the sofas in the small hostel lobby, crouching over his laptop and abusing the hostel’s wi-fi for 500 forint an hour. He straightened up when Natasha approached him and sat down in his lap, leaning in to peck him on the lips.

“I’ve got news,” she muttered into his ear and he closed the laptop, wrapping his arms around her and falling back into the cosiness of the couch.

“So have I,” he replied, burying his nose in the crook of her neck. “Sitwell should be contacting us in about half an hour.”

“Mmmmh,” Natasha smiled, running a hand through his hair. “We better move, then...”

Grabbing their bags, they moved out of the lobby area towards the staircase, hauling their bags up to the second floor with slightly more fuss than was strictly necessary.

After arriving in Budapest in the early morning hours, they had bar-hopped for a while, tracking down one of Natasha’s contacts, who was more likely to be found at night than during the day. The woman, a retired escort in her late thirties, hadn’t had much to tell them, but she had claimed after a couple of drinks and a bad joke at Clint’s expense that the Hydra base in Budapest hadn’t been active in decades. Another couple of drinks later she still hadn’t known much more, but she had pointed them towards the district of Józsefváros as a likely hideout for Leone and her gang, since the Italian mafia had had its fingers in some of the prostitution business there in the Eighties and early Nineties. That business had died - sadly, the woman had added - but there were still a bunch of perfectly inconspicuous buildings standing around that seemed to belong to no-one.

Natasha had paid her a generous amount of money for the information, as well as for her silence, before she and Clint had moved on to look for a hostel, not just to keep up their heart-warming charade of inter-rail travellers who’d met on the road and fallen in love, but also to drop their bags somewhere while they followed up on clues and trails. They had given up on their lovebird act after a minor fake tiff at a coffee shop and gone separate ways little time later.

Clint had spent the morning walking around Józsefváros and consuming gratuitous amounts of coffee before burying himself in the library, while Natasha had checked out Fisherman’s Bastion to make sure the Hydra compound underneath it was dead indeed and to hunt down another contact of hers.

They had agreed to meet up at the hostel at noon. 

Throwing her bag onto the floor of their small twin room, Natasha took a small detour into the bathroom before she sat down next to Clint, who was already sitting on his bed and opening his laptop again, plugging his earpiece into the USB slot and starting a secure connection to Sitwell’s private comm line.

“He’s not online yet,” Clint stated matter-of-factly, then accessed the internal storage of his earpiece. “But look at this.”

Old newspaper articles dating back to 1982 appeared and Clint flipped through them.

“I went through pretty much everything the library and its connected databases had. All of these incidents are potentially connected to the Italian mafia, some of them quite certainly to Leone’s father...”

“Wow,” Natasha muttered, eyes flickering from headline to headline. “You’ve been busy...”

“That’s not even all of it,” Clint replied, pressing another couple of keys. Large images began to pop up on the screen, maps, building and floor plans, various blueprints of houses as well as excerpts from the cadastral register. “I fed all of them into the SHIELD system and had it construct me a map of hot points across the city based on the information in those newspapers, as well as some information I found in police reports... Józsefváros does seem to be a focal point...”

“How did you even do that?” Natasha looked seriously impressed. Clint shrugged.

“Bobbi’s got a couple of useful tricks up her sleeve. She showed me some back when...” he broke off and smirked.

“Back when you asked her out a lot?” Natasha finished the sentence and Clint rolled his eyes.

“Well, at least something came out of it,” he muttered, then cleared his throat. “I’ve narrowed it down to three possible locations...” Street plans of three different areas came up. “As it happens, two of them are actually covered by security cameras that are placed throughout the district. I can’t seem to get the camera footage, unfortunately, but I dropped Sitwell a note about it and he said he’d check for suspicious activity over the last twenty-four hours. I’m not that much of a hacker, they use a kind of coding I've never seen...”

“Let me see the third location. That street is pretty quiet, right?” Natasha said, narrowing her eyes. Contemplating the map for a moment, she nodded. “I think this one’s our best guess at this point...”

“How come? What did you find out?”

Natasha straightened up a bit and ran a hand through her wig.

“First of all, the Hydra base is really and definitely inactive. Johann Schmidt was the last one to use it and he was already dead by the time it got destroyed in 1944. It looks like they never bothered to rebuild it; there’s nothing there.” She suppressed a yawn and rubbed her face tiredly. Clint fetched an energy bar from his bag and handed it to her. Unwrapping it, she continued.

“My contact is also dead. Died of lung cancer two years ago. Poor thing.” She took a bite off the energy bar. “I checked some of the shadier places whether there was something interesting anywhere. Y’know, criminal grapevine. Had a lovely chat with the owner of a dodgy garage.”

“Did you buy us an escape vehicle?”

“No, but turns out he could get me one. As well as any amount of stolen license plates and papers, if I asked him,” she replied, throwing away the paper of the bar and shoving the rest into her mouth. “He’s also been active on the black market for years and after some encouragement on my part, he suddenly seemed to remember supplying an unknown benefactor with a black van, a red Volvo with customised interior, a couple of stolen cell phones and a bunch of other useful things less than a week ago.”

“Interesting. Anything else he suddenly remembered?”

Natasha shrugged, then smiled a little.

“Nothing too useful, they kept him in the dark about most of it, as they would. Considering how many corpses Leone’s been disposing of lately it’s a miracle he’s even still alive. But since he’s no better than them, really, and he definitely wanted to make sure he was getting paid, he did some investigating. That café at the corner of this street,” - she nodded at the screen - “is where he lost their trail.”

“Well, then...” Clint nodded, closing some windows and opening a couple of new, more detailed ones of the area in question. He looked at his watch. “That sounds rather promising. Where the hell is Sitwell?”

“Speak of the devil,” Natasha simply replied, pointing at the blinking red dot in the lower right corner of the screen. “Hi, Jasper.”

“ _Romanoff, Barton,_ ” Sitwell greeted them. He looked like hell, dark rings under his eyes and his tie hanging loosely around his neck. “ _How’s things?_ ”

“Are you all right?” Natasha asked and Sitwell rolled his eyes, taking a large gulp of coffee, the SHIELD logo blazing on the cup.

“ _Fine. We’re just all noticing how essential Phil actually is when it comes to handling emergencies. I seem to be the next best thing and it’s driving me fucking nuts. Everything is crazy mad here and that’s even without me running a secret parallel op with Catwoman and Robin..._ ” He glared at them. “ _Hill is going to have my balls for this when she finds out._ ”

“She doesn’t know?” Clint asked and Sitwell raised an eyebrow.

“ _No. Of course she doesn’t._ ” He glanced to his right, where Clint assumed the door to be. “ _I’m not sure what you think of me, but this ain’t my first rodeo, Barton._ ”

“Never said it was,” Clint muttered. “But knowing Hill...”

“We have news, though,” Natasha cut in and, when Sitwell gestured encouragingly, explained their current situation while Clint transferred the relevant data. Sitwell frowned at the screens in front of him and nodded absent-mindedly.

“ _Sounds good._ ” He typed something into his keyboard. “ _The garage you mentioned is actually the only good number in the log of that cell phone you took off Leone’s thug. The other numbers were dead ends._ ”

“Probably issued by that same garage owner. So we got the right guy, at least. That’s that confirmed, then,” Clint pursed his lips. “What else?”

“ _News from the lab say the contents of the phial are harmless. It's not confirmed yet, but everyone's pretty sure it's not what we thought it was._ ”

“Yeah, we suspected that might be the case,” Natasha replied grimly.

“ _I contacted one of Phil’s spy networks in Belarus,_ ” Sitwell continued. “ _The Viper seems to have left the country two days ago and headed South into Ukraine. My own undercover agents in Moldova and Romania have confirmed that she’s not crossed either of their borders, at least not yet. I’m currently awaiting news from our outpost in Odessa whether or not she’s made contact with the Hydra base there, or taken a ship from the harbour._ ”

“So we can be relatively sure that she’s heading West,” Natasha said and Clint inhaled deeply, determination etched into his features.

“ _Or East,_ ” Sitwell replied, but didn’t sound too convinced. “ _Yeah. Well-_ ”

“ _Jasper,_ ” Fury’s voice was suddenly audible and Sitwell’s head jerked to the side. “ _A word. Now._ ”

Sitwell’s face went completely blank for a moment and he nodded, glancing back into the camera for a mere second before shaking his head and cutting the connection. Clint and Natasha sat staring at the dark screen for a moment before Clint straightened up and cleared his throat.

Flexing his fingers, he began pacing the room.

The plain clock on the wall was ticking loudly; the screen remained black.

Clint rubbed his face, then shook his head.

“We need to figure out a strategy to get into that building.” When Natasha merely blinked at him, Clint pulled his shoulders up defensively. “Listen, I don’t care what Fury or Hill tell us to do when they find out...”

“Clint-”

“...but I’m not going to wait, I’m going to find out where they have Phil-”

“ _Clint-_ ” Natasha began, but the crackling of Sitwell’s connection interrupted her.

“ _You were right,_ ” Sitwell’s pressed voice was audible and it sounded like he was hurrying down a corridor, the soles of his shoes clapping on the floor. “ _They’re in Budapest. Send me all you’ve got, every last thing. We need all your data, right now. We’re mobilising._ ”

“What happened?” Natasha replied immediately and Sitwell seemed to hesitate. The image of his face was blurry and kept breaking off, since he obviously used some mobile device.

“ _I need to get Hill and Fury up to date,_ ” Sitwell said, rounding a couple of corners and entering a room, door slamming shut behind him. The picture was gone, then flickered back to life, this time in better quality. If Sitwell had looked sleep-deprived before, he now looked like he’d seen a ghost. “ _This is a major SHIELD issue now._ ”

“What happened?” Clint croaked, his throat suddenly dry. Sitwell swallowed and bit his lip, then shook his head.

“ _We got... a message. I’m not sure you want to see it,_ ” he began, but Clint cut him off.

“Tell me.” It sounded like a command. “I need to know.”

From the corner of his eye he could see Natasha glance at him. 

“ _Fair enough,_ ” Sitwell breathed and started typing things into his keyboard. He looked directly at the camera. “ _I need you to promise me that you’ll keep your head. Please, for fuck’s holy sake, don’t do anything stupid. Promise me I can trust you._ ”

Clint felt Natasha’s fingers wrap around his own and the controlled sound of her breathing told him how tense she was. She looked almost afraid.

“Show us,” she said evenly.

***

The blandness of the room they kept him in was not just to deprive him of possible tools to free himself with, Phil realised. He had lost his sense of time as well, and not because he had been slamming his head back against the wall repeatedly for what felt like an eternity. The thudding sounds echoed off the blank walls along with the thoughts he couldn’t seem to shut up and made his head ache even more.

Or maybe he had given himself a concussion.

Resting his head back against the wall, he closed his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. He felt exhausted. Getting the old, rusty wheels of the chair to move away from the centre of the room had been strenuous already, but he was beginning to feel cold now.

At some point after he’d begun to cause a racket by repeatedly knocking the back of his chair into the bare wall, two of Leone’s men had shown up and hosed him down with ice cold water. Neither of them had spoken a word and they had stayed close to the door, not approaching him even when he’d spat blood and groaned in despair, drenched to the bone and shaking like a leaf. They hadn't returned when he'd continued.

The light bulb far above his head flickered again. For one long minute he had sat in complete darkness, his pulse loud in his head. He’d stopped in his movements and started counting aloud to keep his wits.

Once again he glanced around the room, biting his lip and feeling pain jerk through his jaw again.

There really seemed to be no visible cameras anywhere. They had left him in complete isolation, not even bothering to keep him from bashing his own head in. He figured that they’d only come back if they wanted another video to send to SHIELD, to boast some progress in breaking Phil Coulson.

Phil’s jaw clenched and he ignored the pain shooting into his skull from the gap between his molars.

His bleeding fingers tightened around the screw that stuck out of the back of the office chair and he slammed the backrest against the wall once more, feeling the rusty piece of metal move slightly. It wouldn’t come loose. He’d been picking at it throughout his ostentatious display of oncoming insanity, hoping to pry it free and pick the locks of his handcuffs with it, but now it seemed to be stuck.

He tore at the metal in frustration, each of his wrists bound by a separate pair of handcuffs, secured to the curved metal that connected the backrest to the seat.

It had to come loose.

He had to get free.

He just _had_ to.

There had been the point where he’d no longer been sure whether he was faking his desperation or whether he was actually losing his mind. The thought of being used as bait for the two people he cared most about was worse than being tortured for his own sake.

Because _Hawkeye_...

He swallowed down the blood that had begun to trickle from the gap in his teeth again.

It was the thought of Clint that had broken something in Phil, exposed and snapped apart that last straw he'd believed to be solid steel. From the moment Phil had fully grasped Leone’s intentions, Clint Barton had fuelled both his despair and his determination, to the very edge of sanity.

Because Phil _knew_ Clint and there was nothing quite so terrifying or bitterly tender as the realisation that Clint would come after him without so much as a second of hesitation, no matter what. Because unlike Natasha, Clint didn’t care if he saw the trap ahead. He would walk into it like the brave and stupid man he was, death-defying and stubborn and impulsive... and Natasha would come because she’d never let Clint go alone.

And Leone knew. She counted on exactly that.

Crashing the chair backwards into the wall again and hitting his head in the process, Phil tore at the screw, his handcuffs jingling. His chest felt tight and he had to force himself to stay focused, to stop thinking... A cracking sound was audible and something underneath him rattled and screeched when he slumped forward again. He could feel the threads of the screw cutting into his fingers.

He had to get free.

If he had to wreck the whole chair, then that was what he was going to do.

His eyes darted around the room again and he braced himself. If there were any hidden cameras after all, he would find out soon enough.

***

“ _Sit down, Barton!_ ” Fury's voice snarled from the laptop's speakers when the short video had ended. Clint had watched it for roughly ten seconds, Natasha's fingers digging into his arm as she sat next to him, before he'd shaken her off and got to his feet, his fingers restless as he'd paced the room, eyes transfixed on the screen.

“ _Barton!_ ” Fury repeated, close enough to the camera so his face filled out pretty much all of his little comm window. Below, in a different window, Sitwell was sucking in his cheeks as if he was about to be sick. “ _Sit down and put that thing away._ ”

Clint glared at Fury, his face pale and his lips a tight, tight line. His bow was in his hand and he had his other digging in his bag for his quiver.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” he spat. “But did you actually _see_ what I just saw?”

“ _I did._ ” Fury's face was serious and his eyebrows furrowed. He leaned back and glared back at Clint. “ _And I'm ordering you to sit the fuck down!_ ”

“The fuck I will! We know where he is. We're going to get him out right now!” Clint pulled his quiver out of his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He looked at Natasha, whose hand had wandered down to the gun at her hip and pulled it out of her concealed holster. She had got out her wristbands at some point, Clint realised. 

“ _You, Barton, are not going anywhere before I personally tell you to!_ ”

“Well, I don't know what the fuck you're waiting for, then!” Clint threw his arms up. “Do you need some special kind of invitation? Was that video too vague for you? You said you traced the location it was transmitted from and as it happens we’re right around the corner, so why the fuck aren't we moving?”

Natasha had moved away from the laptop and was shedding her street clothes, pulling her combat suit out of her backpack and stepping into it. Her eyes rested on Clint, quietly calculating. 

“ _Because this is a trap, you moron. Not even you can be too thick to see it!_ ”

“And you think I care?”

“ _Sit the fuck down before I take you off the case entirely. I am in command of this mission now and I'm moving troops as fast as possible without giving the impression that I plan to invade Hungary. What do you think I'm doing, twiddling my thumbs?_ ” Fury sounded legitimately pissed off. “ _Trust me, people who are a lot smarter than you are working on a plan right in this very moment, while you're having your hysteric hissy fit there._ ”

“How about all your smart people hurry up then, how's that sound?” Clint replied as he put on his three-fingered glove and looked around for his gun belt.

“ _And how about you prove to me for once, Barton, that you're actually as good as Coulson always claims you are?_ ” Fury's voice was sharp and Clint froze for a moment when Phil’s name fell. “ _Stand. Down. That is an order._ ”

Fury's gaze wandered from Clint to Natasha, who had moved back into view of the camera, zipping up her suit and buckling her belt.

“ _Agent Romanoff,_ ” Fury addressed her formally. “ _I hereby give you the explicit order to make sure Agent Barton does not leave the room until I give the command. Are we clear?_ ”

“Sir.” Natasha's voice was even and curt.

“ _You will stay where you are and get some rest._ ” He narrowed his eye at Clint. “ _Look at yourself, Barton, you've slept for a sum total of what, three hours out of the past forty-eight?_ ” He paused and smiled grimly when Clint slumped down on the bed, rubbing his forehead in defeat. It had barely been two hours of napping. “ _Agent Sitwell will keep you up to date and inform you, should anything new come in._ ”

“How long's that going to take, then?” Clint replied wearily, blinking up at Fury, who took a deep breath and looked beside him, where Maria Hill seemed to be working on another comm line.

“ _All units should be in position in about five hours and thirty minutes,_ ” her voice spoke and Clint let out a short, desperate laugh.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He shook his head, mouth open. “Five hours?”

“ _You have your orders, Agents._ ” Fury ended the conversation. “ _Sitwell?_ ”

“ _Yes, sir. I'm on it,_ ” Sitwell replied and Fury's window went dark.

Clint looked at the screen for a moment, contemplative, before he threw Natasha a long look and finally pulled his earpiece out of the laptop slot. Putting it into his ear, he shut down Sitwell's comm window as well and stood.

“We need a plan,” Natasha said calmly, adjusting her wristbands. Clint exhaled loudly and threw her a thankful look. She raised an eyebrow and put a hand on his shoulder. “You didn't honestly think I was going to let you do this alone, did you?”

“I thought I might have to knock you out and run away.”

“As if you could,” Natasha smiled softly and Clint's shoulders sagged when he exhaled, almost sobbing with relief. “Hey,” she said, stepping up to him and wrapping her arms around him. 

“I feel like the world's gone insane, Nat,” he muttered into her neck as he wrapped his arms around her and she gave him a squeeze.

“The world's always been insane. We're gonna do this, Clint. The way we always do.” She released him and took a step back, nodding at the laptop. “You still got those building plans?”

“I do.” Clint sat down and opened the relevant files, composing himself. Resting his chin on his hand, he flicked through the images. “It's pretty big for a town house, nineteenth century building, but the street's pretty deserted and rather dodgy. The building's dilapidated, most of it's covered up for renovation...”

“Apartments?”

“The upper storeys, yes. They were turned into apartments at some point, but they’re empty. The lower half is a former workshop, or something. Big rooms, storage space, large gate into the backyard, possibly to move goods or raw material... this looks like there might've been a big oven... old pipes... fuck, I’m not even sure...” Clint zoomed out of the picture and compared images that showed different angles of the building.

“Entrances?”

“One side entrance was sealed up, front entrance is still there, the big gate I mentioned... several windows, most of them probably closed up, though...” He hummed quietly as he browsed through plans of individual floors. “I'm not sure where exactly they'd be keeping him...”

“Cellar? Storage room? There were no windows visible on the video and the light came from above...” Natasha prompted and Clint frowned, eyes darting across the floor plans. He shook his head.

“Could be anywhere, since this building's halfway through being reconstructed. Fuck knows what Leone's done with the interior. I guess our safest bet is to just get in and look for him. And knock out everyone we come across... I took some special arrows...”

“They'll be guarding their weak spots, though,” Natasha replied when Clint lingered on the image of the back wall with the big gate.

“ _Don't_ ,” Sitwell's voice suddenly crackled in his ear. “ _Whatever it is you're planning. Listen to me._ ”

Looking at Natasha, who was holding her breath in contemplation before shaking her head, Clint switched to a private channel between him and Natasha.

“I guess we could just blast through a window and swing in...”

There was a loud beep in Clint's ear and from the way Natasha flinched he could tell she'd heard it, too. Sitwell, of course, knew how to hack his way into private comm channels. Clint raised his hand to his ear, about to pluck out his comm and throw it across the room.

“ _Clint. Natasha._ ” Sitwell spoke again, his voice tense. “ _Listen to me. You can't do this._ ”

“Fuck off, Sitwell,” Clint muttered, his fingers poking at the button in his ear. “Just stay out of this.”

“ _Oh, for fuck's sake,_ ” Sitwell snapped. “ _Do you think you're the only person who cares about Phil? Give me a fucking break from your meltdown and listen, you stupid, self-centred asshole!_ ”

Clint halted, a little flabbergasted, and cocked a surprised eyebrow at Natasha, who licked her lips, her fingers running along the ribs of her wristband.

“That sounds like you’re willing to help us,” she said quietly and Sitwell sighed.

“ _Yes... I'm trying to._ ” He paused. “ _But you need to give me some time._ ”

“We don't have time, Jasper,” Natasha replied, her voice taut. Clint already had one hand on his bow again.

“ _I know we don't,_ ” Sitwell replied. “ _But, come on, think like agents for a second. You can't do this on your own. It’s madness!_ ” He broke off, then added quietly. “ _I know you're upset, but please don’t do this without a plan._ ”

“Jasper-” Clint began, but Sitwell cut him off.

“ _Phil would never forgive me if anything happened to either of you._ ”

“Oh, f-” Clint breathed, feeling his anger subside a little. Sitwell really was much better at his job than he’d thought. “Talk.”

Jasper exhaled with relief and a window popped up on the screen of Clint’s laptop again. The light from his own screens was the only thing that illuminated Sitwell’s face; he seemed to be sitting in near darkness, but he looked alert and busy. 

“ _Fury is mobilising,_ ” he began, his voice hushed as if he was afraid someone might be listening. “ _There's no way Leone won't notice that, since she’s been watching out for exactly that, but I don't think she knows you're already in town. I think that’s our biggest trump right now. Your best chance is to get Phil out while Leone's still waiting for the rest of SHIELD to arrive..._ ”

“As we said, we have no time to lose, then,” Natasha concluded and Sitwell typed something into his keyboard.

“ _Yes. But,_ ” he cut in, “ _You don't know how many people you'll be facing. No matter how good you are, you are still only two raging specialists without backup working on very little intel. And that,_ ” he emphasised, “ _could be_ Leone’s _biggest trump._ ” Sitwell gazed at them intently through the camera. “ _For all we know the Viper and half her army could be waiting for you inside, we still have no idea where she is. She could also be just around the corner to cut in while you're making your escape..._ ”

“Yes, Jasper, but that’s something we’ll just have to risk. Time’s ticking, I don't car-” Clint began, but Sitwell interrupted him.

“ _Coulson might not be able to walk when you find him,_ ” he said and Clint was struck silent. “ _Or run. He could be hurt, wounded. You saw the video, Clint._ ” 

Neither Clint nor Natasha answered. Sitwell sounded like he was about to add something, when the comm line screeched as it got hacked again. Clint inhaled sharply, expecting the worst. 

“ _The Viper will be arriving in Budapest at sundown,_ ” Ryke’s quiet voice was audible. “ _You didn’t hear it from me. Good luck._ ” 

Before anyone could reply something, Ryke had signed out again. 

Clint thought he could hear Sitwell sigh with relief as he rubbed his temples.

“Sundown,” Natasha muttered and Clint looked at his watch. It was quarter past one in the afternoon.

They had about four good hours until sundown. 

He swallowed. 

“ _I need… one hour._ ” Sitwell half pleaded. “ _Give me one hour._ ”

“Jasper...” Natasha sighed and Sitwell hammered something into his keyboard. 

“ _Don’t do this to me, Natasha. I have people on the way,_ ” he replied. “ _My own agents, they're moving as fast as they can. You'll have backup._ ” He paused. “ _One hour. You can come up with a plan in the meantime._ ”

Clint and Natasha shared a long look, then Clint pulled the computer onto his lap.

“How many?” he asked, moving the screen so Natasha could have a look, too.

“ _Nine._ ”

“A strike team of nine people?” Clint half laughed and Sitwell pursed his lips.

“ _Not a strike team. Spies, contacts mostly, except for one or two, but..._ ”

“Wait. Let me get this straight,” Clint replied, his voice dry. “You tell me I’m being reckless wanting to launch a stealth mission with two of SHIELD’s best agents. And then you send me backup consisting of a handful of undercover informants? What for, exactly?”

“ _A stealth mission with an emergency plan._ ”

“Have they ever even _seen_ a battlefield?” Clint snorted, running a hand through his hair. “I haven't got the time to babysit them through their first field op, Jasper!”

“ _They’re good people_ ,” Sitwell said icily, but something about his face looked nervous. “ _Four of them have sniper training. Two are decent hackers and can take over computer control if Fury finds out about this and shoots me in the head. All of them are good with guns, just... find a way of using them to your advantage. I’ll send over details and contact info._ ”

“Who?” Clint demanded evenly, already opening floor plans and satellite scans on the screen again. 

“ _Ruzova, Nagy, the Kleibers, Sperber, Timenov, Lazarus, Ellis and Szabo._ ”

The names were familiar. They were people from one of Phil’s old networks.

From the corner of his eye, Clint could see Natasha nod thoughtfully and he went through the list in his head. He had met everyone except Ellis, had worked with about half of them, was relatively good friends with Tanya Lazarus from back when he’d still been a Level 3 sniper...

“ _Clint._ ” Sitwell sounded anxious.

“One hour.”

***

“ _I’m in,_ ” Natasha’s voice whispered through the comm. “ _Bring it on, Barton._ ”

“Everyone in position? Jasper?” Clint asked quietly and Sitwell’s even voice replied.

“ _Looking good. All quiet on the satellites. Fury's been on the phone for the last half hour. You’re clear to go._ ”

A dark silhouette rose on the roof of the building across the street from Leone’s hideout, sharply outlined against the afternoon sun. The figure raised a bow and something hit the semi see-through fabric that covered most of the upper part of the building’s façade, shielding off a rusty and unstable looking metal scaffolding. 

“Nice shot,” Clint muttered, crouching on his own roof and already focusing back onto the street below.

“ _Gets me all the ladies,_ ” Lazarus replied, a smirk audible in her voice. 

“Lucky you,” Clint muttered, glancing at her form in the corner of his eye. “Move.”

“ _Copy,_ ” Lazarus replied and disappeared. 

“Where’s Sperber?” a low voice muttered and Clint looked beside him, where Reuben Ellis was crouching, eyes narrowed at the building, every muscle in his body tense. He was five or six years younger than Clint, but over a head taller, extremely thin, with a beaky nose and a pale complexion. Clint still wasn’t sure how much of a fighter he’d be, but from the way Ellis moved Clint guessed that at the very least he was going to be a tough target to hit. 

Ellis was, to Clint’s vague bemusement, a circus artist, although not quite in as trashy a circus as Clint had worked in. The group Ellis was part of performed in fancy concert halls, did not travel in caravans and did not have any animals. Ellis’ skills, apart from espionage, were situated in the gymnastics area, he was an acrobat and dancer and could probably bend his body into every shape known to the human imagination. 

Clint pulled a grappling arrow from his quiver and nocked it.

“There he is,” he muttered. “Now I'm curious.”

Below on the largely deserted street, Sperber tottered into view, carrying a basket that contained his scrawny, feral-looking cat. Clint felt something in his jaw tighten and for a second he wondered whether it would have been better to forget about Sitwell’s backup group. Sperber was only a couple of years older than Phil, but looked like he might have been his father. He looked ancient and moved like an old man, back slightly bent, feet shuffling. The fact that he’d been one of SHIELD’s best spies about twenty-five years ago was a small comfort considering that it also meant he hadn’t fired a gun in combat for about two decades.

Sperber stumbled and dropped his basket as he caught his fall at a street lamp post. The basket crashed open and with a shocked hiss, the cat dashed off towards Leone’s building, bouncing up the scaffold in panic and clawing its way up the fabric covering the walls. It reached the place where Lazarus’ shot had hit and sat still, effectively blocking the security camera not far away, that was directed towards Clint and Ellis' hiding place. 

“I didn’t know you could train cats like that,” Clint muttered as he took aim, one eye still watching how Sperber straightened up slowly and began looking around for his cat in the obvious distress of a confused pensioner. 

“Sperber can,” Ellis replied simply and got to his feet, knees bent. “Ready.”

Clint fired and the arrow hit one of the chimneys on Leone's flat roof. He had barely secured the metal rope on his end when Ellis moved across the gap between the two houses, landing on the opposite roof without making a sound. 

He could move all right, Clint figured, retracting the rope once Ellis had severed it.

“ _I’m going in,_ ” Ellis reported, pulling a little scanning device from his pocket and holding it to the door that lead down into the building. “ _Béla?_ ”

“ _No signs of life behind that door,_ ” Nagy’s wheezy voice came through the comm and Ellis began picking the lock. Clint shifted slightly, glancing down at Sperber, who was still calling for his cat to come down. One of Leone's men had come out and was talking to him in a firm voice. Sperber looked like he was about to fall to pieces before the tall, bulky thug, but Clint's sharp eyes didn't miss the subtle movement of Sperber's hand that dropped a bug into the other man's suit pocket. 

“ _Signal clear,_ ” Nagy's voice was audible again and Clint took a second to look down at Nagy, who sat slumped against a large trash container in a narrow side street close by, half hidden behind a large, black garbage bag.

Even Clint, whose eyes were sharper than most people's, would have mistaken him for a homeless junkie, had it not been for the soft glow of the data screen on his lap that illuminated his lined face, shaggy beard and purple-rimmed eyes. 

“ _Found the cutout box,_ ” Ellis's low voice spoke and Clint saw a gentle, yet cruel smile tug at Nagy's lips. 

“ _Hook me up, then,_ ” he replied, his dirty fingers dancing across his keyboard. Looking up at Clint, Nagy gave him a thumbs up and Clint nodded, not sure whether Nagy could even see him with those eyes. 

Béla Nagy was what SHIELD agents quietly called a 'cold war ghoul'. At some point during the 1960s, so Phil had once explained, SHIELD had run a special network of agents across the Iron Curtain, a unit to outrun any other intelligence organisation. The secret of those agents had been _Matilda_ , a drug that had enabled them to go without sleep over extended periods of time, keeping their bodies and minds running close to overdrive. It had worked like a charm, too, except for the long-term side-effects nobody had cared about at the time, the life expectancy of SHIELD's agents being what it had been back in the day. 

With the result that by the end of the war, SHIELD's twenty-five best spies had been little more than a bunch of heroin-addicts that looked like they'd crawled out of their own graves because death wouldn’t take them. 

Watching Nagy hack himself into control of the building's wiring, Clint thought he could almost feel the drugs pumping through his own blood. The _Matilda_ project had been scrapped over a decade ago, but _Millicent_ , its weaker sister, was still issued to agents on Clint's security level if they went on a long deploy, in case of emergencies.

Not having slept in what felt like ages, Clint had decided this was an emergency.

“ _Leone's man is going back inside,_ ” Lazarus's voice was audible and Clint moved ever so slightly to see the man disappear back into the building. Sperber was left standing outside, still calling up to his cat that refused to move. 

“ _I have his signal,_ ” Nagy's rasped and hammered into his keyboard, coughing. “ _From what I can tell, someone's going upstairs, possibly to take care of the cat. They've switched on the light on the fourth floor. Seems like they keep to the lower two levels, all the upper ones are dark..._ ” 

“Get the cat off, then,” Clint ordered and Sperber nodded almost imperceptibly as he put his hand into his pocket, activating what Clint knew to be a high frequency sound device. The cat meowed and began to move away from where it sat.

“ _I can hear someone coming up,_ ” Ellis muttered from inside Leone's attic. “ _He's alone. I can take him out._ ”

“Can you do it quietly?” Clint asked while down on the street, Sperber was now hurrying towards his cat, about to burst into tears. “Without anyone getting wind of it?” 

There was a long moment of silence followed by a gasp and the sound of a key being turned. 

“ _Done,_ ” Ellis replied calmly, his knife hissing as he slid it back into its sheath. “ _I have his earpiece. Connecting it to mine. Béla?_ ” 

“ _Got your frequency. Running analysis,_ ” Nagy replied. “ _There are sixty-seven devices hooked into their comm network. There seems to be quite a lot going on in the basement and first two floors, the third and fourth are abandoned except for two guards on each level. Your device is... mmh, numbers, numbers... you're Mihaly Zsolt. I'm listening in for you._ ” 

“ _Thanks,_ ” Ellis muttered and as much as it complicated things, Clint was slightly relieved to hear that apparently not everybody at SHIELD spoke Hungarian. 

“Sitwell, can you help Nagy dig for useful data?” he spoke into his comm and Sitwell sounded tense when he replied. 

“ _Yes._ ” He paused, keyboard clicking. “ _Fury dumped some work on me, but... well, I've locked the door to my office... should keep him off._ ” 

Clint nodded to himself, eyes darting around the area surrounding Leone's building where he knew Lazarus and the other agents to be hiding in their positions, ready to cover and strike. He sincerely hoped it wasn't going to be necessary. Lazarus and Ellis were the only two agents under the age of thirty and the only ones he felt halfway confident about when it came to surviving an actual fight. Everyone else... not so much. They could keep an exit route clear and stand guard, but if the mission went south, Clint was very aware that it would boil down to him and Natasha against sixty-seven enemies.

“Natasha,” Clint muttered into his comm and it took her a moment to reply.

“ _I've found out where they're keeping him._ ” Her voice was low. She had sneaked into the building through the sewers, climbing through a system of pipes underneath a cellar compartment of the former workshop. Her job consisted of one thing and that was to find Phil and get him out, preferably without anyone noticing. Everyone else's job was to make sure she succeeded, even if it meant Ellis had to blow up the roof to make them look the other way. 

“ _I'm on it,_ ” Natasha continued, the fabric of her kevlar suit brushing against metal. She halted in her movement. “ _Clint, something's wrong here..._ ” 

“Can you specify what?” Clint frowned. “Sitwell? Nagy?” 

“ _Mh, yeah. They're suddenly on alert,_ ” Nagy replied. “ _They're talking in code, though..._ ”

“Is it Sperber? Do they suspect him?”

“ _Doesn't sound like it,_ ” Nagy answered and Sitwell added,

“ _Doesn't look like it, either. They're suddenly buzzing around like bees in a kicked hive, but they're not falling into formation. They're spreading out..._ ”

“ _Everyone's speaking Italian now,_ ” Nagy groaned. “ _I have no idea what's going on._ ”

“ _I think I do,_ ” Natasha breathed and sounds of her tackling someone to the ground could be heard. “ _Phil's gone._ ” 

Clint's breath caught in his throat and his grip around his bow tightened. 

“What do you mean?” 

“ _I mean his cell is empty,_ ” Natasha spoke quietly. “ _And two guards are lying in it. Unconscious. Both missing their guns and comms._ ”

There was a surge of emotion somewhere in the depths of Clint's stomach at the thought that Phil was obviously in good enough shape to free himself. A harsh breath escaped his throat. 

“Find him, Nat,” he replied, already moving across the roof, grappling arrow drawn. “We'll keep them occupied.” He aimed and released. “Nagy, see if you can locate Phil, he has two comms on him. Tanya, get up here and take my place. Ruzova, take over for Lazarus. Timenov, I need you up on the corner of that roof diagonally across the street. Sperber, get the cars. Szabo and Kleibers, with me. Ellis?”

“ _Listening._ ” 

Swinging down from the roof and landing not far from Nagy, Clint moved to get a quick glance at the building plans and comm positions off his screen. 

“I can let it go dark at any moment,” Nagy stated calmly and Clint nodded, hand moving to his earpiece again.

“Ellis, meet us inside at the sealed up side entrance. You have one minute once the building goes dark.”

“ _Plenty of time,_ ” Ellis answered.

“ _The sealed side-entrance, Clint?_ ” Sitwell's pained voice was audible and Clint smirked, turning to see Cornelia and David Kleiber enter the alley, guns drawn, followed closely by Zoltan Szabo, who was putting away one of his technical gadgets before drawing his own gun and a machete. All three agents looked at Clint expectantly and Clint nodded, smirking as he replied to Sitwell.

“Sorry, Jasper.” He realised he half meant it. “This is plan B.”

***

Crouching in a dark corner behind a large pipe and a stack of metal crates, Phil checked the magazines of the guns he'd taken off Leone's men, one ear listening in to the comm channel. He didn't understand Hungarian, but occasionally there'd be chunks of Italian he could make sense of and so he kept listening, also because it distracted him from the fact that his hands were covered in blood and his fingers were shaking.

They were looking for him, of course.

The floor under his feet was cold and he wished he'd had the mind to take the shoes of one of the two men he'd knocked down. 

The words ‘SHIELD’ and ‘Fury’ set themselves off from all the Hungarian in his ear. Phil listened intently, but he couldn't make out Natasha's or Clint's name, so he told himself to stay calm. He had to get out. 

From wherever he was. 

That had been one smart plan, Phil thought, grimacing bitterly. 

A gun in each hand, he peeked out from his hiding spot in the small cellar compartment and listened intently before stepping towards the open door that he'd slipped through in a hurry. Pressing his lips together tightly, he forced his breathing to calm down.

When he could neither hear nor see anyone, he stepped back out into the corridor, guns raised, and glanced around for any signs that the thugs that had come through looking for him were still around. 

It was quiet. They obviously hadn't expected him to linger about after he'd freed himself.

Licking his lips, Phil's eyes darted around, looking for clues on where he might find a way out, other than through an unknown amount of hostile Hungarians. 

His mind worked at rapid speed, analysing his surroundings. The air was stuffier than it had been in his cell, strangely enough. It smelled mouldy. All the noise seemed to be coming from above; he stood in what appeared to be a corridor somewhere underground. On one end of the corridor there were narrow stairs leading up to where he'd been held. 

He was not going back there. 

Phil turned his head. 

There was a light at the far other end and a number of doors along the way seemed to be leading into different cellar compartments, or possibly other corridors. Two staircases led up to the right. 

The ceiling was solid and Phil's heart sank a little. He'd hoped for pipes, or vents... anything other than taking the same exit route as his enemies. Because he could be sure they’d be waiting for him.

Slowly, heart beating in his throat, Phil continued to move down the corridor, alerted by every distant sound. When he'd reached the first door and couldn't hear any noises of movement behind it, he tucked one of the guns into the waistband of his pants and opened it. 

It was a small storage room like the last one; some of the crates looked like they'd been recently moved in. Scanning the cables that led away from the flickering lamp on the ceiling, Phil thought the wiring looked slightly different than in the previous room; slightly more elaborate where it met and disappeared into the wall. He took a step closer.

Everything went dark and somewhere in the distance Phil could hear an explosion.

Footsteps were audible further down the corridor and low voices called out to each other.

A hand closed over Phil's mouth from behind and he was shoved further into the room, the door slamming shut behind him and his invisible attacker. 

His kick was dodged, his arm blocked as he moved to strike with the butt of his gun. He found himself pressed against a stack of crates before he knew what was happening, unable to move any of his limbs, effectively trapped.

The grip around his wrist was firm, but not painful when he struggled against it and Phil's eyes widened in the darkness when a breath of relief was audible close to his ear, strangely familiar. He froze, held still and felt his wrists being released.

“Natasha,” he whispered and leaned into her reassuring hand on his face as she grabbed for it blindly. The room was pitch dark without windows and with the light gone.

“I'm here,” Natasha muttered, relief heavy in every syllable. “I've found you. I've got you.” Her fingertips trailed down the side of his face and she took a step back. Her voice was a little firmer when she spoke again, into her comm. 

“I've found him.” She paused, then added quietly, a smile in her voice. “Yeah, he is.” 

A loud crashing sound was audible, both through her comm and from somewhere above them. 

“That would be Clint,” Natasha pressed out and made a grab for Phil's shirt. “Are you hurt?”

“Aching. I can run and fight,” Phil replied, adrenaline rushing through his body. 

The light flickered back on and he gave Natasha a determined nod, gripping his gun tighter. She looked up and down his body and her lips gave a twitch when she saw the blood that had dribbled down his chin and turned the front of his shirt an ugly shade of brown. Phil's jaw made itself known with a dull throb and he ignored the pain that shot through his skull.

“Natasha,” he said firmly. “I'm okay.” 

“Let's go, then,” she replied and raised her own gun. “There's a large drain in one of the rooms down the next side corridor that leads into the sewers-”

“Wait, what?” Phil frowned, stumbling after Natasha. She regarded him with her professional glare. 

“There's not going to be a fight. We get out. My orders are to find you and make sure you're safe.” 

“Whose orders are that?” 

“Hawkeye's.” 

Phil stumbled in surprise while Natasha continued to drag him down the corridor.

“What? How-”

“There's a plan, Phil,” Natasha cut him off, her face softening when she spotted the hint of worry on Phil's face. “He's not alone. We did think this through. Sort of. Now come on.”

She tugged at his sleeve as they rounded a corner into a side corridor, then stopped abruptly as she knocked down one of Leone's men that came their way. Phil disabled the second man behind the first with a swift hit to the throat, putting an end to his surprised babbling into his comm, but from Natasha's face Phil gathered it was too late. 

“They know where we are,” she spoke into her comm. “We'll take another way out.”

***

“Go for the front entrance or windows,” Clint told Natasha as he drew another arrow and stabbed his attacker in the eye with it. “Lazarus, Ruzova, keep the way clear for them.”

“ _Will do._ ” 

“Timenov, move so you can cover the rear entrance and clear out anyone you see. Sperber, how's the cars?”

“ _In position. All ready for the signal, Hawkeye._ ”

Taking down the last man of the group that had greeted them when they'd entered the building, Clint looked around the room, catching the bunch of arrows Ellis threw his way. Nodding his thanks, Clint pulled another one out of one of the men on the floor and put them back into his quiver. 

“How're we doing?” he asked, looking at Cornelia Kleiber, who was picking up the guns of Leone's men and handing them out to her husband and Szabo. Clint noticed that Szabo was bleeding slightly from a shot that had grazed his upper arm. He might've had sniper training, but he was shit at dodging.

“ _Barton, there's a group of seven on their way to the front entrance, reinforcing the guards there,_ ” Sitwell's voice spoke over the comm. “ _And I've got about twenty dots moving in your general direction from all over the building... The entire interior structure’s been remodelled; this is a labyrinth..._ ”

“ _Some of those people are just being sent to mind the back doors,_ ” Nagy threw in, still hooked into Leone's channels. 

“First priority is to keep the front open for Natasha,” Clint began to think aloud, his mind working rapidly. He clutched his bow, suppressing the nervous churning in his gut. Somehow storming the building had seemed like an easier idea from the outside. “Ellis, Szabo, you go and catch those seven men before they get to the front. If necessary, help the Widow and then get out yourselves. Cornelia, David, we take care of those that're coming our way. The plan is to keep them busy and get them up and towards the back. Nagy, you got anywhere that'll give us an advantage?” 

“ _Like Sitwell said, it’s a maze of dead ends in there, let me..._ ” Nagy replied, then his voice hardened. “ _The stairs down the corridor to your right, two floors up, then to the left. Another staircase in a corner, pretty narrow, angles look good, should give decent cover... Not many people in your way, either, if you're fast._ ”

Clint nodded when Ellis and Szabo left and he motioned the Kleibers to move in the direction Nagy had given them. Following them, he looked at the walls, ceiling and floor, half his mind wondering how he was going to block the way most effectively.

“ _Jasper, Fury's on the way to your office,_ ” Ryke's voice suddenly spoke. “ _Sorry, pal, I tried to keep him busy, but that explosion was hard to miss... he's not happy with you._ ” 

“ _Thanks for the warning,_ ” Sitwell muttered. “ _Béla, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to take the satellites too if Fury decides to kill me on the spot..._ ” 

“ _He's ordered all SHIELD units to hurry the fuck up, at least,_ ” Ryke added, hesitating. “ _I'll keep an eye on the satellites if necessary._ ” 

“Thanks,” Clint replied, then addressed the Kleibers. “Here's the deal. You go up. I'll be collapsing the way behind you to make sure you don't get outflanked. You go and find that other staircase, secure a good, safe spot and get ready to shoot when I bring them your way from the other side.” 

“ _You sure this is a good idea?_ ” Nagy threw in, understanding what Clint was about to do. “ _That kind of stuff has a fail rate of seventy percent, even in the movies..._ ” 

“You're watching the wrong movies, then,” Clint pressed out, strapping his bow across his back and grabbing his guns instead. “Got a good way for me?” 

“ _Go back to where you got in, then straight ahead,_ ” Nagy began and Clint moved. 

 

Ten minutes later Clint could hear Fury's wrath all the way through Sitwell's comm. Sitwell was holding up surprisingly well, considering Fury seemed to be about to blast his way into Sitwell's shiny office. It seemed like Jasper had hacked his own lock and shut himself in, computers running on batteries and wireless.

“Duck!” Cornelia shouted and Clint threw himself aside, just in time for her to take down the thug that had tried to attack him with a shot to the throat. Debris was raining down from above as a stray shot hit the ceiling.

“Thanks,” Clint breathed and tried to take cover pressing up to a wall, heart pounding in his chest. 

Shooting and yelling as he brawled his way through the half-done construction site that was the building and gathered everyone he came across and couldn't take out straight away behind him only to lead them into the Kleibers' line of fire had worked until Leone's men had figured out what he'd done and had taken cover themselves. Clint was effectively caught between the lines, without many possibilities of hiding. 

“ _You need to get out of there,_ ” Nagy spoke into his ear, his voice tense. 

“Oh, splendid idea. I'll just stroll off and be on my merry way, then,” Clint snarled, rolling backwards and reloading his gun as he went. A bullet whizzed past his face and he aimed, cursing when the shooter had already ducked back into hiding. 

“ _Béla's right,_ ” David spoke. “ _How many are there left? Five? We can take those on, but you're on a silver platter there..._ ” 

“ _Four,_ ” Nagy answered. “ _At least for now._ ”

“Signs of backup?” Clint asked, changing positions again as he dodged another shot.

“ _No,_ ” Nagy said. “ _Reuben and Szabo are doing a good job of keeping them occupied. The wall to your right should be weak enough for you to blast your way through._ ” 

Between dodging another shot and throwing himself out of the line of fire again, Clint dropped his guns and grabbed his bow. He aimed his shot so the dust and smoke of the explosion gave him cover to slip away.

***

“ _Natasha,_ ” Clint's voice spoke. “ _Report._ ”

“Almost out,” Natasha replied, peeking around the corner, gun raised. “One more corner, two of Leone's men...”

“ _You've got a helicopter incoming down your escape route,_ ” Ryke interrupted and Natasha glanced at Phil, who was next to her, reloading his own gun. “ _Looks like Leone called for backup. I've also got my eyes on a handful of suspicious cars heading your way..._ ” 

“ _Where is Leone?_ ” Clint replied, his voice cold and harsh and Natasha hoped he wasn't going to do anything stupid. Taking another glance around the corner towards their exit, she fired a shot at the window next to the door. Glass shards were flying and she could hear someone curse. 

Now or never.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Phil move and she turned, firing as she ran. The two men in their way went down with a shot between the eyes.

“Go. Be careful,” Natasha ordered, turning around to make sure nobody was behind them while Phil made his way out across the glass shards on the floor. She could see movement at the end of the entrance hall, but before she could press the trigger, the man made a terrible, choked noise and Natasha watched in shock how his head lolled back, windpipe neatly separated and his cervical vertebra visible for a moment before dark blood began to pour out of his neck and he crumbled to the ground. 

Reuben Ellis' slender, black-clad form stepped into view and saluted her darkly with a long dagger before motioning her to get out. She nodded curtly and followed Phil out onto the street.

“Clint, where are you?” she called into her comm, crouching down behind a parked car next to Phil, who was already carefully taking aim after dodging a shot from across the street. “We're out, but we're not the only ones...”

“ _They're trying to cut us off_ ,” Sperber suddenly spoke and Natasha frowned, turning her head up and down the street to figure out where he was positioned. She could see him crouched behind a low brick wall not too far off. “ _Looks like they want to keep us engaged out on the street._ ” 

“Vulnerable to fire from above,” Phil muttered and Natasha licked her lips.

“There's a hostile chopper coming in,” she hissed. “Shit. Clint?”

“ _I'm going up to the roof, Leone's there_ ,” Clint replied, breathing hard. From the clanking sound of his boots Natasha guessed he was running and climbing up the scaffolding. “ _Nat, you need to get out. Lazarus, cover them best as you can, hear me?_ ” Metal was grinding against metal over the comm. Next to Natasha, Phil was firing two shots. “ _Ellis, where are you?_ ” 

“ _Ground floor, on our way out the back..._ ”

“ _Yes, good_ ,” Clint replied quickly. “ _Take a detour and get the Kleibers, then leave, all of you. Nagy, talk them through... Timenov, forget Leone and focus on helping Ellis and the others. Our best chance is to scatter, got me?_ ” He panted and the sounds of his footsteps were gone. “ _On the roof. Ruzova, give me eyes?_ ” 

“ _Chopper still approaching, lowering down. Leone's there with seven bodyguards_ ,” Ruzova's high voice replied. “ _She's rabbiting._ ”

“ _Keep the chopper from getting too close, do not let her get away_ ,” Clint ordered.

The sound of the helicopter's rotors above them caused Natasha to look up. They had to move, she realised and one glance at Phil told her he was thinking the same. 

A sniper from that helicopter could take them out without much trouble. Or, if Leone was desperate enough, drop a bomb onto the street and save everyone the trouble. Natasha had seen too many missions, she knew that the odds that Leone would simply blow up the entire building were going to skyrocket once she was no longer on it herself. The cars that Sperber had strategically placed, packed with explosives, were going to add good fuel to the explosion, too. 

“Clint, it’s getting hot, we have to...”

“ _I know_ ,” Clint's voice answered curtly and Natasha could tell from the sounds that he was busy knocking someone out. “ _You better find a way, Nat... real soon, too..._ ” 

“What about you?” 

“ _I'll think of something._ ” 

Natasha swallowed, but a bullet that whizzed past her head kept her from dwelling on Clint's words too long. 

“Nagy, give me the best route away from here,” she spoke, moving slightly so she could have Phil's back as he coordinated his shots with Sperber's, hoping to draw out the men that were shooting at them. 

“ _Up the street to your right_ ,” Nagy replied, hesitating. “ _Towards the river, right under the helicopter. I've definitely got hostile cars approaching now, this is the only direction where you could make it before they cut you off..._ ” 

“So we run,” Natasha replied, looking at Phil and nodding into the direction Nagy had indicated. Phil looked sceptical, but pressed his lips together with determination. 

“ _I'll have your back_ ,” Tanya Lazarus said and Natasha glanced up to the roof where she knew the other woman to be. 

“ _Natasha_ ,” Clint panted. “ _Leave._ ”

***

All the bodyguards were down. It was just Leone and him now, and Clint clenched his jaw when she turned out to be a better fighter than he'd anticipated, considering she had a habit of hiding behind a wall of thugs in suits.

“Ellis, how're you coming along?” he pressed out as he tried to attack again, dodging the two combat knives she was wielding. 

“ _Got the Kleibers. We're being held up at the back door, but it won't be long- fuck!_ ” he exclaimed. “ _Fucking hell, Andrej, how about a warning..._ ”

“ _Sorry,_ ” Timenov replied. “ _But this had to be quick._ ” 

“ _Fine. We're out,_ ” Ellis reported and Clint could hear him running while he himself jumped back, Leone's blade missing him by a breath. 

“Everyone, show off your sprinting skills...”

“ _That's Hydra in those cars_ ,” Nagy mumbled. “ _The Viper's joining the show..._ ” 

“...And shooting skills,” Clint added. “Just save your asses, okay?” 

It was getting really tight now, he thought, his ankle connecting with Leone's wrist and tearing a snarl from her lips. Something in her eyes was sparkling, he thought grimly. She knew her backup had arrived. 

“Where are our own units? Jasper?” 

“ _Fifteen to twenty minutes away_ ,” Sitwell replied and a huge bang was audible from his end. Fury's voice yelled something in the distance, but Sitwell's fingers didn't stop clicking on his keyboard. “ _Natasha, you need to make a run down the street fast... Sperber will blow up the first car behind you-_ ” 

“ _Sitwell_ ,” Fury's voice suddenly spoke through Mission Channel, dripping with anger. “ _Open this door or I will blast it away. As of right now, you are suspended-_ ”

“ _Yes, sir, my resignation will be on your desk tonight_ ,” Sitwell cut him off, his voice tense and curt. “ _Right after I'm done here. Barton?_ ”

Leone's booted foot slammed into Clint's chest and his breath was knocked out of him as he sailed backwards. He landed hard on the roof, pain jolting through the back of his head, and it took him all the discipline he had to use his momentum to roll backwards and onto his feet. 

He spotted Leone moving across the roof, away from him, and towards the rope that had been dropped for her from the helicopter. 

If she had made one mistake, it had been to create this much distance between herself and Hawkeye.

“ _Barton!_ ” 

“Leone is down,” Clint spoke quietly into his comm, his bowstring brushing against his lips as he drew. Not really listening to whatever Fury and Sitwell were arguing, he released. 

Leone went down like a log before she could even make a sound. Clint didn't have time to look at her unmoving form sprawled across the roof; he only barely avoided a shot to the head himself. Rolling sideways and taking cover behind a chimney, he nocked another arrow and tried to take aim. 

“Nat, if you're not running yet, run now,” he spoke into his comm, ducking further into cover. “Chopper sniper's busy.” 

“ _We're running_ ,” Natasha breathed into his ear and shots rang in the background of her voice. “ _Clint, you have to get the fuck off that roof...!_ ” 

“Working on it,” Clint gritted out and cursed under his breath when the helicopter moved ever so slightly and the sniper was out of Clint's line of fire. Machine gun fire was audible and a sense of dread overcame Clint. 

“ _Hawkeye, this is your cue_ ,” Nagy grunted, apparently running himself. “ _They're focusing on the street, now get off there!_ ” 

Clint was already on his feet, turning his head to the helicopter, from which bullets were raining down. 

“Sperber's cars! Natasha!” he blurted out and ran across the roof, drawing a grappling arrow and taking aim. He was already swinging down onto the street, the helicopter making a small drop when Clint's weight pulled down on it and unsettled its balance, before anyone realised what he was doing. 

“ _ARE YOU INSANE!_ ” Sitwell yelled into his ear and Clint swallowed when the helicopter swerved dangerously above him, the line of machine gun fire zig-zagging across the street below, out of control, drawing dotted lines onto the asphalt. 

Clint watched the lines approach one of the explosive cars Sperber had parked in case they needed to shake off anyone on their way out. The plan was still good, except the sniper was likely to hit the car before Natasha and Phil were out of the kill zone.

He narrowed his eyes against the brisk air biting his face. He had angled his jump as carefully as he'd been able to. Ahead of him, down on the street, he saw Natasha and Phil running, occasionally firing back over their shoulders. 

“Natasha, get down!” he yelled and he saw her eyes widen when she spotted him cutting through the air. 

Almost sensing the moment when the bullets began hacking into Sperber's car, Clint closed his eyes and let go of his bow. 

He rolled onto the asphalt, arrows cracking in his quiver, and scrambled to his feet. He reached Natasha and shoved her towards a group of garbage bins, yelling at her to take cover when he spotted Phil, who stood still, staring at him, then at something behind him, gun still in his hand. 

Lunging forward, Clint felt the wave of the explosion behind him when the car went up in flames. Grabbing Phil by the shoulders, he tackled him to the ground, one arm curled protectively around Phil’s head, the other one trying to catch their fall. He could hear Phil hiss and cough out a breathless groan when Clint's weight landed on him and Clint pushed himself up just a little, eyes squeezed shut as he braced himself against the hot hail of stones, dirt and car pieces that went flying everywhere, rattling against his quiver and the back of his uniform. 

“Clint!” Phil's voice reached his ears and Clint opened his eyes. Phil was staring up at him, his face dirty with dried blood and dust. The lines across his forehead were deep with worry and pain. 

“We're okay,” Clint breathed, trying to crack a smile, when something hard and sharp hit his back and scraped over the back of his head and his vision went white for a second. “Phil. We're okay... just...” Closing his eyes in pain, he tried to keep breathing. When he blinked, black dots were clouding up his sight and all he could see what Phil's face, his eyes widened in terror. 

Clint felt something trickling down his forehead, temple and the side of his neck. When Phil moved his hand to cup Clint's jaw and then pulled away, Clint could see the thick, red blood covering Phil's fingers, fresh and warm. 

Phil's mouth was moving, then he was shouting, but Clint couldn't hear it. 

All he could do was numbly stare at the blood that was dripping down from his forehead onto Phil's.

“Fuck,” he breathed, a strange light-headedness taking over, slowing everything around him down, removing him from it, as if he was watching it from far away. Somewhere at the edge of consciousness, he saw a big, black van screech to a halt close by and he looked up dazedly. Zoltan Szabo was leaning out of the driver's window, waving and probably yelling at them. 

Natasha was suddenly pulling at his shoulders. Phil never stopped looking at him. 

The tips of his shoes dragged across the rocks on the floor as he was being heaved towards the van and shoved into the back. 

 

“Clint.”

A sharp sting in his neck jerked Clint back to consciousness with a ragged gasp and he scrambled to all fours, trying to get to his feet, when a steady hand on his shoulder held him down. 

“Clint! Calm down. It's okay. Look at me.” In the relative darkness of the van, Phil's face moved into his line of sight and he could feel the rush of adrenaline subside a little. Phil's hand still rested on Clint's shoulder and his fingertips exerted just enough pressure to ground Clint's reeling thoughts. 

“Where am I...?” Clint blurted out, then squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his thoughts into line. He knew where he was, he knew... what had happened. 

Groaning, Clint collapsed back onto the vibrating floor of the van. His head felt heavy and numb and all he wanted was to close his eyes.

“No. Clint! Look at me,” Phil ordered sharply and turned Clint's chin towards him. “You need to stay with me here, okay? No naps now, Barton.” The look in his eyes was sharp. “Let's get you out of this...”

Clint whimpered when Phil began to shift his limbs in an attempt to take off his quiver harness, careful not to touch the back of Clint's head that was caked with drying blood and dirt. From the corner of his eye, Clint saw how Phil barely used his right hand, fumbled with buckles and pulled at straps only with his left. 

“Talk to me, Clint.” 

“You're hurt,” Clint managed, moving his hand to make a grab for Phil's right wrist. Phil pulled his hand away and shook his head, snorting lightly. 

“I'm hurt,” he replied dryly. “ _I'm_ hurt?” 

“Pretty bad, too, the way you're repeating yourself...”

Phil's lips twitched and he exhaled in a mixture of a sob and a laugh. He shook his head and slowly, carefully rested his right hand in Clint's, fingers twitching when Clint brushed his thumb across it with a grim expression. 

“Sprained wrist, I think... it'll be all right.” He glanced at Clint. “I wasn't the one who threw himself off a five storey building.” 

“I _swung_ off that five storey building,” Clint corrected in a weak attempt at stubbornness, blinking against the fog in his head. “Like... like Tarzan.” 

“Like a complete idiot, more like,” Phil muttered, putting the quiver aside, and he moved to sit so he could face Clint as he talked to him. “Like an insane, stupid, reckless, suicidal...” He exhaled harshly and ran a hand through his sticky, bloodied hair. “What were you even thinking?” 

Clint swallowed down the answer that burned in his throat, almost like a defence mechanism. 

“I...” he rasped out, then fell silent. He wasn't sure what he'd been thinking, not really. Or maybe he was, a little bit, but thought processes worked differently in battles. A lot of them didn't hold up when they were spoken out loud afterwards.

He took a moment to look at Phil's torn fingertips, the cuts and scabs around his wrists where he'd been handcuffed, the blood on his shirt, his face... the gap in the row of his teeth that Clint knew was there. He looked tired, there was a weariness in his eyes that Clint felt echoing in his own bones. 

But Phil was alive, Clint thought with a rush of elation. 

“It was worth it,” he said quietly, trying in vain to keep his eyelids from drooping. Phil moved and another prick to his neck jerked clarity back into Clint's head. 

“Fuck... what _is_ this?” he pressed out, narrowing his eyes, and Phil held up Natasha's wristbands that she'd thrown at him before closing the van doors from the outside and jumping into the passenger’s seat. 

“She only has three of those darts,” Phil explained, putting a hand on Clint's face to get his attention. “You have to stay awake, hear me? SHIELD has shown up, they're going to take care of you when we reach the meeting point, but you have to stay awake. You stupid fuck took _Millicent_ and it's wearing off now.” He shook Clint's face lightly. “Focus, Barton. Stay with me.” 

Clint clenched his jaw and nodded, inhaling deeply. 

“Yes, sir.” He moved his arms, trying to push himself into an upward position, but Coulson shook his head and pressed him down again. 

“No, stay down,” he spoke soothingly. “Rest your head and don't move too much. Just stay awake.” 

“Anything else, sir?” Clint asked dryly and Phil's grip on his shoulder softened. He moved his hand and his fingertips stroked gently along the line of Clint's ear into the hair at his temple, brushing off crumbs of dried blood.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For... for being... irresponsible enough to come after me.” 

Clint took a moment to reply, his voice oddly constricted.

“You didn't honestly think I was going to leave you behind?” Clint turned his head and his eyes met Phil's. Phil swallowed. 

“What you did was insane. The whole thing was a trap, it was-” His voice was hoarse.

“I knew that,” Clint cut him off, eyes boring into Phil's, who held his gaze. Clint's voice was low and shook with determination. “You think I care?” 

Phil didn't reply. He stared at Clint for a long moment, then averted his eyes, biting his lip. Clint contemplated him in silence, unsure of what so say, before he looked away himself. 

“I couldn't leave you behind,” he muttered into the floor, not quite managing to look up at Phil when he still didn't say anything in return. Clint felt an unexpected pang of hollowness in his stomach and his features hardened. 

“Leone is dead.” It sounded strange, spoken into the silence.

“Who made the call?” Phil asked softly and Clint flexed his fingers.

“I did.” He licked his lips and swallowed, his throat too dry. “She deserved it.” 

“She did,” Phil replied after a moment's pause. 

“What happened to the others?” Clint suddenly asked, shifting in his position and moving a hand up to his earpiece, realising he wasn't wearing it anymore. He looked at Phil, who plucked it out of his own ear and offered it to Clint, who glanced at the device, then at Phil. 

“Did they get out all right?” 

“Yes,” Phil replied. “Last I heard they all got away. SHIELD arrived about a minute after that car went up and they took care of the situation. Everyone got out. They're safe.” 

“Good,” Clint sighed and let his head rest back down on the floor. 

The car slowed down and came to a halt. A moment later, Clint was being picked up by two SHIELD medics and hauled onto a stretcher. This time, when he felt the prick of a needle, he blacked out within seconds.

***

“And that little cloud is...?”

“The explosion,” Clint replied earnestly, fighting the grin that was tugging at his lips. When Phil looked up from the clipboard onto which he'd told Clint to write his mission report, Clint lost composure and cracked a smirk. 

“My drawing skills are better than my spelling,” he argued and Phil raised an eyebrow as he put away the pen.

“That they are,” he muttered under his breath and sighed, looking at Natasha, who was lounging on the empty hospital bed next to Clint's, “Next time I break my wrist I'll make you write.” 

Natasha grinned lazily.

“You keep telling me you can't read my scrawl,” she sighed, curling her body around the pillow and rumpling up the sheets some more. “Remember the time you brought back ingredients for pancakes instead of a bag of potatoes?” 

“I maintain that there was no discernible 't' in that word. Ask Clint!” Phil argued tiredly, not for the first time ever since that particular incident. 

“How exactly did you think pancakes were going to figure in fish soup?” 

“I don't know what you Russians eat. Maybe you should just write in print letters like Hawkeye does,” Phil pursed his lips in smugness and glanced at Clint, who raised an eyebrow at him. 

“I try to be as clear and concise as possible.” 

“And what's more clear and concise than drawing pictures...”

“ _Illustrations_ ,” Clint corrected, challenge sparkling in his eyes. “To support my writing.” 

Phil chuckled and patted Clint's leg through the covers. 

“How dedicated.”

“I dare SHIELD to hold my dedication against me!” Clint huffed and Phil gazed at him for a moment before his features softened and he smiled.

“You must be new here. Well, thank you for your cooperation, Agent Barton.” When Clint stuck his tongue out at him, he got up and gestured with the clipboard. “I better take this up to Fury. He's taking the helicarrier to Australia tonight and wanted this before he left.” 

“Hey, Phil!” Clint called after him and Phil turned around, one hand on the door handle. Clint licked his lips, then grimaced. “Any chance they'll release me today? I'm getting a little... restless. You know.” He looked around the room and smirked. 

“You've been awake for what, four hours?” Phil replied incredulously, then rolled his eyes and nodded. “No promises. That head of yours is seriously fucked up.”

“Yeah, but we knew that before,” Clint retorted weakly and Phil rolled his eyes.

“I'll see what I can do.” He stepped out of the room.

“Thanks!” Clint called after him, but Phil had already closed the door. Sighing, Clint let himself fall back into his pillows, hissing when the cuts and bruises across his shoulders made themselves known. 

“You okay?” Natasha asked, sitting up and Clint nodded.

“Yeah, can you just move that pillow... thanks,” he sighed, leaning back slowly and more carefully when Natasha propped the pillow she'd been lying on between Clint's back and the mattress. He looked at her and groaned. “Got one for under my ass as well? I swear, the bedsores are worse than the actual injuries...”

“You better be glad about that,” Natasha replied darkly, moving to sit on the side of his bed, facing him. There was a twitch of her bottom lip that told Clint she wasn't joking. He swallowed.

“I know,” he began, but she cut him off. 

“Do you?” she asked sharply. “Do you know what it was like to see you collapse there? With blood streaming down your face? I _saw_ the metal hit you, do you have any idea-”

“Natasha,” Clint tried to argue, but she wasn't having any of it.

“I thought you were _dead_ , Clint.” She glared at him, her lips pressed together. “Phil thought you were dead. You should have seen his face when I hauled you off him... How could you do that to us?” 

She fell quiet, her breath shaking with anger and relief, and Clint silently offered his hand that lay on the covers next to Natasha's. Twining her fingers into his, she squeezed slightly. 

“I'm sorry,” Clint eventually muttered, swallowing. “I just... something in my head snapped, I... I don't know. I never stopped to think about it.” 

“Yeah, I get that impression a lot with you lately.”

Natasha contemplated him, the way that was her habit, and Clint felt strangely vulnerable, more vulnerable because he was aware of how she had kept his pieces together throughout their rogue mission to Budapest. It was harder to ignore how beside himself he'd been now that he knew she hadn't missed it, either. 

“So what's wrong?” she eventually asked and Clint frowned, shaking his head in confusion.

“What?”

“I hate to break this to you,” Natasha said evenly. “But you've not been very much yourself ever since Vienna. You've never been suicidal before.” 

“You mean going rogue on Fury?” Clint snorted faintly and Natasha quirked an eyebrow.

“Hardly out of character for either of us,” she muttered, then her voice turned more serious. “I'm talking about how at times – and you know exactly what I mean – you acted like half of your rational mind was missing.” 

Because that was what it had felt like, Clint swallowed, averting his eyes. 

He'd read Phil's report, heard his side of the story and he'd felt miserable afterwards. Because of course Phil wasn't new to the job, he'd dealt with worse than what had happened in Vienna and Budapest, and Clint knew it, had known all along. With a little more time Phil would have made his escape without help. Clint had felt so stupid when he'd realised it.

“All I could think of,” he spoke quietly. “Was that we had to get him back.” He took a deep breath. “Because... that's what he would have done for us.”

“He would have. We all would have. You've done it for me more than once,” Natasha said, her voice soft. She licked her lips. “But you don't usually lose your head. What you did here was... I've never seen you like this.”

He wanted to argue, say something insensitive just to put her off and get her angry at him, but something about her voice shut him up. 

“It's not like you,” she continued, her voice level, “to lead a group of inexperienced agents into and out of a fight and to have blind faith in them, but then lose all sense of... of proportion... when it comes to people you should know are _well capable_ of-”

“I was never worried about _you_ ,” Clint interrupted her when he realised what she meant and she fell silent. He didn't look at her, but kept his eyes focused on their hands on the sheets. He tightened his grip around hers. “I always knew I could trust you, Nat. I trust you more than I even know. I never, for one second, doubted you, or your abilities to get your job done.” 

“Then why did you have to throw yourself off a building and into the line of fire?” She sounded hurt. “This is not how it works, it's not part of our deal. You risked your life, Clint. Very nearly lost it, too. How... _how_ is that sign that you trust me?” 

“I was just so terrified,” Clint said, his voice barely a whisper. “That something would happen to him. And believe me, I feel like an idiot,” he added quickly, his voice tight, feeling like he was confessing without knowing what exactly. Her fingers tightened around his and he continued. “I don't know why. I know what Phil is capable of, you told me, everyone told me, hell, I even told myself... I know he doesn't need to be...” he cringed a little, “ _protected_ , or... I don't know. But I couldn't help it.”

He paused for a moment, wondering if Natasha was going to say something. Her face was completely unreadable and she contemplated him calmly, barely blinking. He cleared his throat.

“Of all the things Leone could have done, this one just felt... too... too close.”Clint clenched his jaw. “It felt like... like she'd pulled the ground out under my feet.” He looked up at Natasha, his eyes hard and vulnerable. He shook his head and shrugged. “It wasn't about trusting you, or Phil. It really wasn't.”

Natasha looked at him calmly.

“Maybe not.”

Clint exhaled and bit his lip.

“I know that if it happened again, I wouldn't act any differently.” He laughed humourlessly. “I guess that makes me an idiot, huh? Getting the hysterics and throwing myself off a building when I really should know better.” 

“I guess,” Natasha replied gently, shifting closer and carefully curling up at his side. She rested her hand on his stomach. “So what are you going to do about it?” 

He wanted to ask what she meant, but he knew that Natasha was not going to fall for it. They both knew what she was talking about, just like they both knew just what Clint hadn't really said out loud. 

“Nothing,” he replied and took a deep breath, before adding, “Just... nothing.”

She moved her head to look up at him, frowning. He shook his head at her and ran a hand through her hair, twirling strands between his fingers. 

“Well, what could I possibly do?” he asked. “I don't even know _what_ -... I need...” he exhaled in frustration and shook his head. “Time. Just, a week, a month, just... some time. To figure this out. You know, to find out what exactly... what exactly is going on. Because I have no idea what to do about it.” 

“Okay,” Natasha replied evenly, reading his face with a gentle, yet inquisitive expression. “Then you should do that.” 

He glanced at her and she smiled a little before resting her head back against his shoulder. 

“Thank you, Nat,” he muttered into her hair.

***

“Phil!”

Walking down the corridor to Fury's office, Phil stopped dead in his tracks and turned towards Maria, who stepped out of Sitwell's empty office. Looking past her, Phil could see the cleaned-out shelves, the bare desk, the dark computers. 

“Nick wants the door repaired,” Maria muttered, fumbling with the useless key cards that would have granted access to the office, had the lock not been shot to pieces. 

Phil nodded and Maria sighed, drawing the office door closed behind her. She'd liked Jasper Sitwell, Phil thought. He'd been right up her paperwork alley and one of her first choices when she'd needed a second in command for her Remote Mission Control team. Phil had heard that she'd put in a word for Sitwell with Fury, but there was little she had been able to do about Jasper's resigning. 

“I'm on my way to the Director,” Phil said, motioning with the report in his hand, and she glanced down the corridor towards the director's office. 

“Best of luck,” she said grimly, then grabbed Phil's unbandaged wrist to give it a squeeze. “I'm glad you're back,” she added and Phil returned her smile before heading on. 

 

“Come in and sit down, I'm almost done,” Fury greeted him when he entered the office. Putting Clint's report down on Fury's desk, Phil sat down in the visitor's chair and watched Fury shove a stack of ledgers and files into a leather briefcase before closing his laptop and placing it on top. When he'd shut and locked the case, he sat down in his own office chair and grabbed Clint's report, flipped through its pages and set it down again, sighing. 

Phil held his gaze when it fell on him and didn't say anything. 

“How're your teeth?” Fury eventually asked and Phil smirked.

“As good as new. But they made me promise to come back sometime and let them drill off what's left of my face.”

“Gotta love dentists,” Fury muttered darkly, running his tongue across his teeth behind his lips, as if to make sure none of them were going to cause him any trouble. 

“Barton's report,” Phil prompted and Fury nodded.

“So I see. How's he doing?” 

“Asking to be released, actually.”

“What'd the nurse say?”

“I've not asked her yet.”

“Good. When you do, tell her it’s her decision.”

“Will do.” 

“I take it, Agent Romanoff is with him?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I believe she keeps him from driving the members of medical staff insane.”

“Very good.”

Fury leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on his chest, fingers crossed and thumbs slowly circling each other. 

“You know why you're here, Phil.” 

The corner of Phil's mouth twitched.

“I think so, yes.”

Fury tilted his head, then continued. 

“You also know that what I'm about to do is what I have to do, as director of SHIELD. I will assume that an agent of your competence and experience will have seen this coming.”

“Nick, let me-,” Phil began, but Fury shut him up with a gesture of his hand. Phil deflated slightly and Fury took a deep breath, as if he was bracing himself just as much. 

“Just let me get it over with, okay? I'm not enjoying this.” 

“Sir,” Phil replied and he mentally prepared for what Fury was going to say next. If he wasn't going to get a chance at arguing, at least he was going to take it in his stride. 

“I don't have to tell you that you, Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff are the best team that SHIELD has seen in... a long time,” Fury began, eyeing Phil. “Hell, you have achieved things that many would have considered impossible. Never mind that you break protocol more often than not; I have more or less opted to ignore that. The way you work together and rely on each other has always been what makes you so strong, and that merits unconventionality in my book.”

Phil nodded and Fury pressed his lips into a tight line.

“Unfortunately,” he went on, and a frown appeared on his face, “The very thing that makes you strong is also where you are most vulnerable. And after what happened on this mission, I cannot afford to keep turning a blind eye on that.” 

“Sir.”

Fury's voice when he continued was firm.

“I'm splitting you up, Phil.” 

A bitter smile tugged at Phil's lips. There it was. 

Of course he'd known it was coming. He'd known it tied to a chair in Hungary, the moment Leone had told him what she planned to do. But now that he actually heard Fury say it, he realised it hurt him more than he'd thought it would. 

He glanced up at Fury, who was not done talking.

“You know that it's only a matter of time until someone tries to exploit that weakness the way Leone did and, unlike her, actually succeeds. I cannot let that happen. I cannot risk three of my best agents.” 

“I understand,” Phil eventually said, straightening up in his chair. “But if I may suggest, there might be less drastic measures-”

“It's time to move on, Phil,” Fury cut him off and Phil fell quiet. “I'm not saying this is permanent, but right now you've lost perspective on this. All of you. And I really do not want this to end with a funeral.”

The corner of Phil's mouth twitched as the memory of Clint's bloodstained face above him flashed back into his mind and he thought he could almost feel the blood dripping down onto his cheek. He swallowed. 

Fury was right. He might not like it, but Fury was right. 

“So what happens now?” he asked and Fury leaned forward in his chair again, resting his hands on the desk in front of him. 

“There might be,” Fury hesitated, “some bigger things ahead.” His eye bore into Phil. “Things for which I will need you at your best. All three of you. Which is why for now I want you to... stretch your wings, if you want me to use a flowery phrase.”

“I do wish you'd give me the non-flowery version, sir,” Phil replied, eyebrow raised and Fury rolled his eye. 

“Fair enough. Here's the deal: Agent Romanoff is better than any spy we have managed to train in all of SHIELD's history. I want her as a consultant on the planned overhaul of our espionage training course. Also, Maria is working on a big case in the Far East. From the looks of it, the Black Widow is about the only person we can count on getting the job done before we all die of old age.” 

“A long-term deploy?” Phil asked and Fury shrugged.

“That remains to be seen. In any case, rest assured that I am not going to waste her on routine investigations. I am well aware of how much she is worth.” 

Phil nodded, realising that for once he trusted Fury to tell the truth. As sceptical as Nick had been about Natasha when she'd joined SHIELD, as much he had grudgingly grown to respect and trust her. She was efficient, disciplined and versatile and her skill set included items most SHIELD agents could only dream of. 

She had also wrapped Fury around her finger, but Phil wasn't going to tell him that.

No, Phil had no doubt that Natasha would be fine. She wouldn't like the reassignment, but she'd do well. And she was going to enjoy cleaning up the mess that was the espionage department.

“What about Barton?” 

Fury sighed loudly, as if he had somehow hoped Phil wouldn't ask. 

“I knew this was coming...” he muttered, then shrugged. “Well, first of all he needs to get out of medical and be cleared for field work again. Afterwards... I have some plans in progress for Agent Barton.” 

Phil's lips twitched and he straightened up in his chair. 

“Sir, I know you think that Barton-”

“Oh, don't you tell me what I think of Clint Barton, Phil, not again,” Fury interrupted, eyebrow raised in reproach. “I read reports. Yours,” he picked up the clipboard and narrowed his eyes at it before setting it down again, “And his, too. I have also already read reports on the Budapest incident from people who do not choose to resort to drawings in order to help their narratives along. I have a very good grasp of concepts like disobedience, stubbornness, recklessness and a whole bunch of other things that are frequently mentioned in context to the man. As a matter of fact, I am very, very clear about what I think of Agent Barton and I really do not need any input from your side.”

Phil pursed his lips and stared back at Fury, who was quite obviously on a roll with his dramatic monologue. Probably the same one he'd given last time Phil had argued Clint's way out of temporary suspension. 

“Especially not,” Fury continued, “Since you seem to be labouring under the impression that he's incapable of doing anything right in my opinion.” 

That part was, admittedly, new. Phil blinked and raised an eyebrow and Fury looked smug as he pulled a ledger out of his desk drawer. It was Reuben Ellis' and Béla Nagy's joint report on the Budapest mission. Phil nodded curtly.

“I have read it,” he said and Fury cocked an eyebrow. 

“Have you? Well, so have I. And I'm not sure whether it somehow slipped your attention, but it seems that Agent Barton decided to lead a team consisting to the biggest part of... well... SHIELD's scrap heap,” he glared at Phil, “into a fight in which they were so hilariously outnumbered, madness isn't even a word for it.” 

He paused, for sheer effect, Phil noticed. Typical.

“Now, here's where it gets interesting, though,” Fury continued. “It seems that not only did Barton – and it was Barton, all reports confirm this – devise a plan that made use of every team member's strengths and skills. No, he also adjusted that plan on the fly when he had to and coordinated a strike team, a sniper team, as well as a bunch of other people - including Jasper fucking Sitwell - while he was himself engaged in combat. And not only did his team take down most of their opponents, they also all made it back alive. Now, I don't know how you think I should be feeling about this, Phil, but personally, I find that rather remarkable.” 

Phil blinked. He hadn't really thought of it that way. He'd always known that Clint was capable of a lot more than he was usually given credit for, had, in fact, spent quite a lot of energy on making it clear to some who wouldn't believe it, but the way Fury had phrased it...

“So in case you're worried, I can promise you I have no intention whatsoever to waste this kind of potential,” Fury interrupted his thoughts. “He's quite obviously not only a skilled tactician, that man has talent as a leader. With some training, hell knows, he could be commanding his own units.” Fury rubbed his face and contemplated Phil tiredly. 

“But,” he groaned, shaking his head at Clint's report, “he has to stop throwing himself off buildings first. Christ, Phil, this wasn't even the first time. He lacks discipline, he...” Fury fell silent. 

“He's got his heart in it,” Phil finished the sentence. 

“He doesn't think,” Fury retorted. “And please, who's using flowery phrases now? His heart is not going to do him any favours if it keeps making him throw himself into the line of fire.”

“You might just think differently when it's the only thing standing between you and the bullet that kills you,” Phil retorted and Fury's mouth twitched. 

“Be that as it may,” he pressed on. “You have to let him go. I hate to say this, Phil, I really do. You've stood behind Barton all these years and hell knows, you have made him a better agent than anyone could ever have dreamed. But he doesn't know where the line is and it's high time he proved himself somewhere else than under your command.” 

“Where are you sending him?” Phil asked, trying to ignore the bitter sting of the thought that perhaps he'd been the one to hold Clint back all this time. 

“For now, nowhere in particular until he gets his groove back. But I've been setting things in motion to have him join Kat Ferrante's network in the long run. There'll be some preparation necessary to set up his identity, and he'll have to get some additional training in order to infiltrate Ross' circles and get into the military, but I think some press-ups in camo might just do him some good.” 

“Yeah,” Phil replied, wondering how Clint was going to feel about it. He cleared his throat. “He works well with her. And Ferrante's always liked him, so I can see that working out.” 

Fury watched Phil for a moment and Phil raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Well?” Fury asked. “Are you going to ask me what my plans for you are?” 

“Put me behind a desk and bury me in paperwork,” Phil snorted. “I know for a fact that you have been fantasising about it for years. I have read the signs...” 

Fury chuckled, then turned serious.

“I'm promoting you,” he said and cocked an eyebrow when Phil groaned. “To a position where you'll get a secretary for the paperwork. I'm also taking you out of the field op sector-” he raised a hand in defence when he saw Phil's face darken, “and I'm officially shifting you into administration and policing.” 

Phil narrowed his eyes at Fury and pursed his lips.

“And unofficially?” 

“Unofficially, I need you on a committee. I have...” Fury made in indecisive noise. “Plans. Ideas. I need someone to help me get clearance from the council.” 

Phil snorted and rubbed his brow before sighing.

“You know, Nick, I don't like pointing this out, but usually when we're on a committee together, we end up disagreeing.” 

“That's why I need you there,” Fury replied promptly, his gaze steady. “This is a big one, Phil. Think Pegasus big. Just as top secret. I need people I can trust for this. And if there's one thing I have always been able to trust you with, it's that you're going to disagree with me if you feel like you have to.” 

Fury was serious, Phil realised, and it was a sobering thought. 

“I've only got two people I can count on,” Fury continued. “You and Maria. Now, I can trust Maria to remind me that there are indeed legal boundaries even I can't cross, and to make sure I stay more or less within the law as far as it's applicable to SHIELD. I need you to do the same when it comes to ethics.”

“Shit, Nick, do I even want to know what you're planning?” Phil blurted out and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers of his bandaged, right hand. “How could you need a reminder for ethical issues? I am already hating your idea.” 

“I actually think that you'll love the idea. It's charmingly old-fashioned,” Fury smirked, then turned serious again. “The thing about you, Phil, has always been that you care about people. As in, you actually care about them as living, breathing individuals and not just as soldiers, or agents, which I will admit both Maria and I are sometimes prone to.” He paused. “This... _idea_ ,” he pronounced carefully, “involves people. Which is why I think that someone like you is exactly what we'll need for it.” 

Phil sighed and leaned back in his visitor's chair. He couldn't deny he was intrigued. Against his will, almost, but he was. Fury's big ideas usually tended to be... well, big.

“What's the deal, then?” 

Fury cracked a smile and shrugged. 

“Cheer up, old boy. You'll be our field man. Undercover, not on behalf of this particular initiative, but you'll be the one talking to people and making contacts.”

“You mean I'll be the one pissing people off on your behalf,” Phil threw in dryly and Fury looked pleased with himself.

“You'll love it. We'll find a SHIELD internal cover story for you once I've briefed you on all the details.” He looked at his watch. “You can also choose an agent to assist you with keeping your double identities running and organising stuff. I don't know, pick someone you can work with, maybe someone from-”

“Sitwell,” Phil cut him off and Fury fell silent, his face darkening. Phil tried to keep his face straight. “I want Sitwell.” 

“I said 'Pick an agent', Phil. Jasper Sitwell handed in his resignation, d'you want to see it?” Fury asked, one hand moving to the chest of drawers behind his desk. Phil shrugged. 

“Then get him back. If I get a sidekick, I want Sitwell.” 

Fury crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Phil. 

“Are you indulging some compulsive habit when it comes to assembling your teams? Do you actually need to be a pain in my ass about it, or something? Why can't you just look at agent profiles and pick someone from the roster?” 

“I don't pick my team members based on information that's written in a profile,” Phil replied calmly. “As you might have noticed.” 

“I have...” Fury muttered sourly, then grimaced. “Fine. Have Sitwell. I'll talk to him.”

“Thank you, Nick.” Phil got up and straightened the jacket of his suit. Fury leaned back in his chair and looked at him for a moment.

“You're coming with me to Australia tonight. I need to brief you as soon as possible and it's going to be a long brief.” 

Phil hesitated. He thought of Clint and Natasha, who were most likely still in medical, waiting for him to come back and tell Clint he could go home. 

He looked at Fury, who seemed strangely sympathetic.

“Do you want to tell them, or would you rather I did it?” he asked and Phil fought himself for a moment. 

“No,” he eventually replied. “I'll do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Living in Vienna/Austria, I am fully aware that the portrayed image of public transport is hilariously delusional. No train or subway will ever be “conveniently there”. But hey, suspension of disbelief, yeah? 
> 
> I have never been to Budapest and had to rely on wikipedia for local details. Suspend your disbelief some more, please?
> 
> Thanks go to my betas [nerakrose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose) and [mrs_jack_turner](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_jack_turner/pseuds/mrs_jack_turner) for bearing with all my whining as I wrote this and kicking my arse when I lost perspective and motivation. Thanks also go to nerakrose’s uncle, who contributed professional opinion on the use of helicopters in this story.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Once More Unto the Breach](https://archiveofourown.org/works/511873) by [mrs_jack_turner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_jack_turner/pseuds/mrs_jack_turner)




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